National Poetry Month is coming up in April, but you don’t have to wait until then to get your poetic juices flowing! Poetry has lots of benefits for readers and writers of all ages, including building vocabulary, language, and imagination. It’s also fun!

The Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF) is hosting a Kids’ Poetry Contest. Children ages twelve and under in New Hampshire and Vermont may email up to three poems to judge/writer/editor Erika Nichols-Frazer by March 31, 2021. Please include the poet’s name, age, and mailing address (so we can mail the winners books). Winners of each age category will receive new books and winning poems will be posted online in the month of April (with permission).

They can write in any style, rhyming or not. CLiF presenter/poet Ted Scheu (“That Poetry Guy”) has lots of fun videos and inspiration to get you started. Reading favorite poets is also a good place to start. Can you write a poem like Shel Silverstein’s, for instance?

We can’t wait to see what your young writer comes up with!

Here are a few CLiF presenters/poets sharing their poems:

You can find all the videos of our presenters in our Virtual Storytelling Series. You can see the schedule for upcoming storytelling sessions and sign up here.