Entries for our annual poetry contest are open from June 1 to August 1, 2024. The contest is open to members and non-members of The Poetry Society of Michigan. All of the details are included in a printable PDF file that you can download HERE. We suggest you print this file.
Over $1,100 in prizes to be awarded in 10 categories.
Scroll down for our blog posts about various topics, poems from our publications, announcements of member publications, and events.
New Michigan Author Awardee
Mark you calendars! With great pleasure we are happy to share the news that Jim Daniels is the new Michigan Author for 25-26.
Many of you have followed his writing and poems through a long and illustrious career. Jim’s new book Late Invocations for Magic is a new and selected volume out this month. Congratulations Jim!
So of course, we talked to him. And now, in a fortuitous partnered event with Poetry Society of Michigan, Michigan Writers and PSM have joined forces for a special online reading. Jim will give a reading from the new book, offer a moderated conversation, and will take questions Thursday, February 26, 7:00 pm. Virtual and open to all members of MW/PSM. Mark your calendars for this unique opportunity and of course, we will send the zoom link for the event a few days before, around February 23 or 24th.
For those unfamiliar with this poet’s amazing work, his bio is here:
The Poetry Society of Michigan spring conference will be held on Saturday, May 2, at the Castle Museum (Morley Room) in Saginaw, Michigan (500 Federal Ave., 989-752-2861, castlemuseum.org). All are welcome to attend. Visit the website to register.
10-10:30 Registration/coffee and donuts
10:35 Welcome
10:45 Traveling Trophy Reading (bring a short poem to read)
11:40 Writing Workshop (Jan Worth)
12:35 Lunch provided (talk, eat, smile)
1:10 Writing Workshop (M.L. Liebler)
2:05 Brief Business Meeting
The cost is only $35, which includes lunch and a drink (and we have a $20 student rate)! You can register and pay online at poetrysocietyofmichigan.com (under Events). We look forward to seeing you there!
Brief Notes on Our Presenters:
Jan Worth is a poet, novelist and non-fiction writer from Flint, Michigan. For decades she has been delivering poems, essays, short stories, and the novel Night Blind to the world, writing about her life experiences as a preacher’s daughter, a newspaper reporter, Peace Corps volunteer, social worker, and longtime writing teacher at the University of Michigan – Flint. She spent years as a columnist for Flint’s venerable East Village Magazine before becoming editor from 2015 to 2020. Her book of non-fiction is That’s My Moon Over Court Street: Dispatches from a life in Flint and her new book of poems is Elegies from the Last Days of the Empire from Kelsay Books.
M. L. Liebler is an internationally known & widely published Detroit poet, university professor, literary arts activist and arts organizer. He was named The 2017-2018 Murray E. Jackson Scholar in the Arts Awardat Wayne State University. Liebler is the author of 15 books and chapbooks including the award winning Wide Awake in Someone Else’s Dream (Wayne State University Press 2008) featuring poems written in and about Russia, Israel, Germany, Alaska and Detroit. Wide Awake won both The Paterson Poetry Prize for Literary Excellence and The American Indie Book Award for 2009. In 2005, he was named St. Clair Shores (his hometown) first Poet Laureate. Liebler has read and performed his work in Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Russia, China, France, UK, Macao, Italy, Germany, Spain, Finland and most of the 50 States. Liebler has taught English, Creative Writing, American Studies, Labor Studies and World Literature at Wayne State University in Detroit since 1980, and he is the founding director of both The National Writer’s Voice Project in Detroit and the Springfed Arts: Metro Detroit Writers Literary Arts Organization.
The Poetry Society of Michigan is seeking poems for a five-year anthology to be published in 2026.
Current and former PSM members are known to be passionate about local environments both thriving and abandoned: lakes great and small; woods, streams, Karner Blue butterflies and more. We have rich histories tied to Michigan that inform our daily lives. To that end, we are seeking poems that convey the Power of Place.
If you have been a dues-paying PSM member in at least one of the past five years (2021-2025) we invite you to submit. Send your submission to PSM’s Anthology Managing Editor Melanie Dunbar at editor.psm@gmail.com.
Submissions open: January 1, 2026
Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2026
Guidelines: In the body of an email with the subject PSM ANTHOLOGY SUBMISSION include:
-Author name and contact information (address, phone and email)
-three to five poems (within the body of the email–no attachments please).
-Acknowledgement for any submitted poems that were previously published.
(We prefer new work but previously published work will be considered as long as the copyright is owned by the poet and the work is accompanied by information of when and where it was previously published.)
Note: While broad representation will be the editors’ primary intent, page limits, and applicability to the theme dictate that acceptance will be selective. Membership alone does not guarantee inclusion.
The anthology will be launched at our Fall Conference 2026 in Lansing and will be distributed to libraries state-wide. Readings will be held in multiple cities throughout 2027 to celebrate over 90 years of the Poetry Society of Michigan.
Contributors accepted will receive one copy of the anthology. Additional copies will be available for purchase at Amazon.com.
is that my catalpa tree
is engorged with lightly
scented white flowers,
branches bowed down
and offering this bridal bouquet to me.
No gondolas on these rain
flooded streets, only twigs
and leaves gliding down to
the manhole covers,
dancing in circles until
they disappear below.
Roberta Brown is the winner of the 2025 Margo LaGattuta Memorial Award in PSM’s annual poetry contest.
Get the Word Out to Students:
The National Federation of State Poetry Societies sponsors a student poetry contest—ten monetary prizes will be awarded in each division—Grades 6-8 and Grades 9-12. The deadline is NOVEMBER 15 and there is no entry fee! Please spread the word to students and teachers; see the website below for more detailed information. Thanks for your help in promoting poetry!
Some of the poems in A Day without Fear are months old while a few were written over forty years ago. Altogether this is an eclectic collection of poems ranging from the very imaginative to the pastoral to the hard poems about mortality and what happens after death, if anything. In this chaotic and harrowing world, it’s hard to live a day without fear, but we have to try. As far as we know, this is the only life we’re going to get.
Born and raised on the third coast, Michigan, David James has published eight books and has had more than thirty of his one-act plays produced in the United States, Ireland, and England. After working for forty-five years in higher education, he retired in 2022.
The fall issue of Making Waves published by The Ludington Writers Group has been released. It includes several poems by PSM members. The theme for this issue is “Homer’s Oddities”.
To read it free online, just click the cover illustration.
Patricia Barnes of Wyandotte MI, PSM Honorary Chancellor:
HM2, Winners Circle Award
HM3, Poetry Society of Indiana Award
HM5, The Robbie Award
Deb Belcher of Tustin MI:
HM4, The Barbara Sykes Memorial Award
Dr. Emory D. Jones of Iuka MS:
HM6, William Stafford Memorial Award
HM3, The Robbie Award
Cynthia Nankee of Canton MI:
3rd Place, Jim Barton, Bard of the Pines Award
HM7, Jim Barton Memorial Award
1st Place, Alabama State Poetry Award
HM2, James C. Saunders Memorial Award
HM3, Wallace Stevens Memorial Award
2nd Place, Mississippi Poetry Society Award
1st Place, Barbara Stevens Memorial Award
Polly Opsahl of Oscoda MI:
3rd Place, Poetry Society of Indiana Award
1st Place, Poetry Society of Oklahoma A
In her article, Nailing the Landing, member poet, Shutta Crum writes, “Perhaps the most egregious crime of bad poetry is when the poet tries to summarize the poem for the reader. This usually happens at endings. But the writer must bear in mind that readers bring to the table their own histories. Readers take away what is needful at the moment—to them. And it may be something entirely other than what the writer had in mind while writing the poem.” Read the full article HERE.
Shutta Crum is the author of several middle-grade novels, thirteen picture books, many magazine articles and over a hundred and fifty published poems. She is also the winner of nine Royal Palm awards, including gold for her chapbook When You Get Here. (Kelsay Books, 2020). Her latest volume of poetry is Meet Me Out There. She is a well-regarded public speaker and workshop leader. shutta.com
Poetry Society of Michigan 