WESTMINSTER ART FESTIVAL
Poetry 2025
Poets are invited to submit works on the theme
"ONE PLANET"
Our 2025 Poetry Juror is
Phillip Sterling
Poetry submissions are limited to one or two 8 ½ x 11 page
(Please read Entry Guidelines carefully for more information.)
Limit of two poems per poet for 2025.
Entry fee: $15 for one poem; $25 for two.
Poems accepted for inclusion in the festival will be presented in book form, accompanied by images of many of the visual art entries.
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Winning poems will be read at the awards presentation.
We will also offer an opportunity for other participating poets to read their work.
Poetry books from 2024 and previous years are available at the church. Suggested donation is $5.
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Phillip Sterling’s most recent book is Lessons in Geography: The Education of a Michigan Poet (essays/memoir, Cornerstone Press 2024). Other books include In Which Brief Stories Are Told (short fiction, Wayne State U Press), Amateur Husbandry (micro-fiction, Mayapple Press), the poetry collections Local Congregation: Poems Uncollected 1985-2015, Short on Days, And Then Snow, Mutual Shores, and four chapbook-length series of poems.
He is the editor of two anthologies: Imported Breads: Literature of Cultural Exchange (Mammoth Books 2003) and Isle Royale from the AIR: Poems, Stories, and Songs from 25 Years of Artists-in-Residence (Caffeinated Press 2017).
Among his awards are a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, two Senior Fulbright Lectureships (Belgium and Poland), and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. Professor Emeritus at Ferris State University since his retirement in 2013, Sterling has served as Artist-in-Residence for both Isle Royale National Park and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He lives with his wife Jane Wheeler on a small plot of land in Lowell Township, Michigan, where they tend a woodlot and numerous gardens and care for an extravagance of animals and insects of questionable domesticity.
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​We are delighted to welcome Phillip as Poetry Juror for the 2025 Westminster Art Festival!
FIRST PRIZE $300
SECOND PRIZE $200
THIRD PRIZE $100
Please read guidelines carefully, as some details have changed.