02/06/2023
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What Juneteenth Means (To Me) 8th-12th Grade Poetry Contest
2021 Texas Poet Laureate Cyrus Cassells is holding a school poetry competition through March 15. In celebration of the new federal Juneteenth holiday, the contest encourages young writers in Texas to explore the events that make this day in Texas and American history such a stirring and significant one. The submission period will run from February 1 to March 15, 2023. To encourage young writers, helpful poems and prompts, a brief holiday history, a downloadable poster, and a podcast are included at https://whatjuneteenthmeans.com.
Individual schools will submit 1-3 nominated poems to be considered by the contest’s first read screeners, who will then forward them to five distinguished Final Judges.
There will be a public reading and award ceremony at the Neill-Cochran House Museum in Austin for the winners and honorable mentions. The judges, screeners, top three winners and seven honorable mentions will all receive honorariums and copies of Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Reed’s book On Juneteenth and Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration by Edward Cotham Jr.
PRIZES AND CEREMONY:
1st place: $500
2nd place: $350
3rd place: $150
7 Honorable Mentions: $100
Each of the 10 winners will also receive a travel stipend to attend the ceremony.
The ceremony will take place at the Neill-Cochran House Museum in Austin on Saturday, May 20, 2023 at 10 AM. The Neill-Cochran House Museum is located in the heart of Austin, just a few minutes’ walk from the UT-Austin campus. It stewards one of the city’s oldest residences (1856), including Austin’s only intact slave quarters. It sponsors regular African American programming.
This program is funded by the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation.
