Poetry Contest

Calling all Poets Worldwide! The Hektoen Institute COVID-19 Monument Commission announces a poetry competition for a Poet Laureate. 

You are invited to enter our poetry competition to become the first Poet Laureate for the Global COVID-19 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, & Resilience.  

Grand Prize: $4,000 

The winning poem will be celebrated and published on the website of the Global COVID-19 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, & Resilience (covidmemorialmonument.org); read at the dedication ceremony of the Monument in Chicago (estimated for fall 2025); and publicized on social media.

Your poem might address the following themes: hope, remembrance, and resilience; individual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns; isolation; the euphoria of receiving the vaccine; recollections of frontline and essential workers serving during the pandemic; tributes to loved ones lost during the pandemic; themes of mourning; healing; and reflections on the collective pandemic experience. 

Before submitting, please familiarize yourself with the mission of the Global COVID-10 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, & Resilience (covidmemorialmonument.org). 

A jury of distinguished individuals in literature, art, and medicine will review submissions.  The jury will be chaired by Elizabeth Colledge, Ph.D. English literature.  

Submission deadline: May 15th, midnight, 2025 CST. 

GUIDELINES & SUBMISSIONS INFORMATION

Consent

You are age eighteen or more; your poem is your original work and not created through Artificial Intelligence; your poem has not been previously published; you give consent to publish your poem on the Monument website and all social media platforms related to the Monument.  Additional consent is given for your poem to be read at the Monument dedication ceremony by anyone of the Monument Commission’s discretion (which may or may not be the author).

Copyright & Plagiarism

You acknowledge and have read the following regarding copyright (©) and plagiarism:

If selected as the winner, your poem will become the property of the Hektoen COVID-19 Monument Commission, and may not be published without its prior written permission. Authors retain the copyright to their submissions to the contest unless selected as a winner.

By submitting your work to us via this form for consideration, you consent to the scanning of your work by third-party plagiarism checker programs along with, on a case-by-case basis, research by our staff of your publication history to ensure the work published is original. Plagiarism is, in its simplest
wording, claiming someone else’s work as your own. When you submit work or portions of a work that you yourself did not write, without giving credit to its original author, that is plagiarism. Plagiarism ranges from copying another’s entire publication to rewording portions and ideas from another’s publication without a citation.

Submission Instructions and Form

You may submit one poem for the contest. Your poem must be in English and your own original work, without the use of Artificial Intelligence. Poem may not have been previously published.

Before submitting your poem, please familiarize yourself with the mission of the Global COVID-10 Monument of Honor, Remembrance, & Resilience on the website: (covidmemorialmonument.org).

Poets will not contacted again unless selected as a winner.

All submissions due by May 15th, midnight CST.

Inquiries about the competition should be sent to info@hektoeninternational.org

Poems should be saved and uploaded below as a Word document by the author’s first and last name.

On the same Word document, please include a cover page with:

  • Author’s first and last name, email address, contact telephone number, and home or business address. 
  • A biography no longer than 100 words, written in the third person, that may include your current educational and professional status.

When you click the send button below, you will receive immediate notification of a successful submission.