The search for the 45th Bucks County poet paureate is on. The longest-running program of its type in Pennsylvania, Bucks County Poet Laureate Competition, is again ready to evaluate submissions from local wordsmiths.

Bucks County Community College oversees the competition.

Each entrant must submit 10 original poems of any style or length, along with an entry form. All work must be:

• Original
• Published or unpublished
• Typewritten (or printed via computer)
• One poem per page
• Presented with text in black ink

Works go to the Language and Literature Department at Bucks County Community College. The deadline is September 10.

The Bucks County Poet Laureate Competition winner receives a $500 honorarium and a proclamation from the Bucks County Commissioners. He or she will be featured at a Fall reading and reception at the college.

Two judges will blindly select the 2021 laureate. The preliminary judge will narrow the entries down to a few dozen for the final judge, who will choose the winner and three runners-up from the pool of finalists.

For more information on the search for Bucks County’s next poet laureate, contact Professor Ethel Rackin, Ph.D, the competition’s director.

Winning this contest takes skill
And a sweet way with words, if you will
So enter your verse
For better or worse
'Cause winning will give you a thrill