The Massachusetts Poetry Festival First Poem Contest Mass Poetry

THE MASSACHUSETTS POETRY FESTIVAL FIRST POEM CONTEST

About the Contest:

The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival returns to downtown, Salem, MA, May 31 and June 1, 2025. The Festival’s opening headline event will start with a reading of a poem by a New England writer. The winners and honorable mentions of the contest will be invited to join us at the Festival and read their poems in person if they are able. Otherwise, another poet will read their poem on their behalf. 1st place also comes with a prize of $250. Two honorarable mentions will be awarded $50 each. The names of our winners and the text of the winning poems will be published on the Festival website.The contest is open from January 1st to March 15th.

This contest is open to all New England writers or writers who have previously lived in New England. This year’s guest judge is to be announced. Those with a relationship to the guest judge that may represent a conflict of interest such as very close friends or mentees are not eligible for the contest. Please submit 1 original, unpublished poem in .pdf or .docx format. There are no restrictions on length or poetic style. Please do not include your name in the document. A $10 submission fee helps us administer the prize and supports other Festival programming. Please submit only 1 poem per entry. For students and those for whom $10 represents a financial burden, a free submission option is available. Free submission entries are limited to 1 per person. Submissions are open until March 15, 2025. Winners will be notified in mid-April.

Mass Poetry asks for the non-exclusive rights to publish and archive the winning poem, all or in part, on our website, social media, print, or for any marketing purpose. We ask that the poem be unpublished as of the Festival, all other rights remain with the poet. Please send only your own creative work; do not submit another poet's work (unless you are assisting the poet for technical reasons with their full consent) or any work for which you do not hold the copyright.

About the Guest Judge

J.D Scrimgeour is Professor of English at Salem State University and the author of five collections of poetry, The Last Miles, Territories, Lifting the Turtle, Festival, and the bilingual Banana Bread. With musician Philip Swanson he released Ogunquit & Other Works, a CD blending poetry and music. He is also the author of two books of nonfiction, Spin Moves and Themes For English B: A Professor’s Education In & Out of Class, which won the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s Award for Nonfiction. He has published over 140 poems in magazines such as Poetry and Ploughshares and has won awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the National Society of Arts & Letters, and the Academy of American Poets. In 2023, he was the Gregory Stockmal Memorial Speaker for the Worcester County Poetry Association. Over the course of his career, Scrimgeour has written and published poetry, essays, short stories, and drama about Salem. in 2025, J.D. was selected by committee for a two-year term as Salem's inaugural Poet Laureate.

Scrimgeour enjoys interdisciplinary collaborations. In addition to his CD of music and poetry, he has worked with choreographer Caitlin Corbett and photographer Kim Mimnaugh. With his two sons, Aidan and Guthrie, he wrote the musical, Only Human, which premiered in Ames Hall Theatre in 2014, and his short film, Chasing Chloe, about a middle-aged man’s quixotic attempts to defeat his talented niece in a race, premiered at Cinema Salem in 2022.

Scrimgeour has been a member of the Executive Board of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and in that role he helped bring the Festival to Salem in 2011, where it has remained ever since. He also founded and directs the Salem Poetry Seminar, a collaboration between Salem State and the Salem Athenaeum that brings 12 select undergraduates from Massachusetts public universities to Salem for a week to study poetry.

Scrimgeour has served on the Salem Education Foundation, and he coached in Salem Little League for eight years. He has been Chair of the Salem Athenaeum’s Writing Committee for over a decade, for which service he received the Edward Augustus Holyoke Award for “exemplary leadership cultivating a community of writers.” Part of that work included founding and hosting the Salem Writers’ Group in the early 2000s, a group that continues today. At Salem State, he has served as English Department Chair and Coordinator of Creative Writing, and in 2023 he received the University’s Senior Award for Faculty.

Scrimgeour has lived in Salem since 1996 with his wife, Eileen FitzGerald. Their two sons attended Salem public schools. Mary Towne Eastey, an ancestor in his direct line, was put to death during the Salem Witch Trials. Another ancestor, Thomas Perkins, sat on the jury that found her guilty. Words from Mary Eastey’s petition, which helped bring about the end to the Trials, are carved into the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.

Previous Winners:

In 2023, a winning poem and two honorable mentions were chosen by guest judge Charles Coe

Winner:

• Susan Michele Coronel, "When My Mother’s Hands Were Called"

Honorable mentions:

• Sam Moe, "Back When the Deer Were Horses and the Horses Were Rivers"
• Nnandi Samuel, "A Boneyard of Flesh// Post-War Trauma"

In 2021, three winning poems were chosen by guest judge Dara Barrois/Dixon (former Dara Wier)

• Samn Stockwell of Barre, VT, “The Transmigration of Souls at the Donut Shop”
• Samantha DeFlitch of Portsmouth NH, “I am a Parking Chair”
• Emily Joan Cooper of Peabody, MA “Upon Quitting My Job”