Attention, Poets.

St. Valentine’s Day has come. And gone. St. Patrick’s Day is still a month away. In between, lay an opportunity ripe for the plucking. Rather than divulge outright what is afoot, let me offer for your edification a little quiz. Sharpen your yellow No. 2 pencil and your wit. Cheating will not be tolerated. (Don’t worry this multiple choice test won’t burn too many brain cells.)

1. Are you 18 or older?
2. Are you a Maryland resident?
3. Are you a poet?
4. Do you have an unpublished poem not exceeding 100 lines (this includes in print, on the Web, Twitter, or Facebook)?
5. Do you have an unpublished poem (not exceeding 100 lines) which is not currently under review for possible publication?
6. Are you or any member of your immediate family a paid or volunteer staff member of the Enoch Pratt Free Library or the Little Patuxent Review?
7. Have you ever won first place in a previous Pratt Library Poetry Contest?

You may put down your pencil.

If you responded “Yes” to questions 1-5 and “No” to questions 6-7, you really must consider submitting a FREE entry to the Enoch Pratt Free Library Poetry Contest. Why? (Other than you have nothing to lose.) The winning poem will be published in Little Patuxent Review, enlarged for display in a Central Library show window, and honored at a public reading at the Central Library. Runners-up may be considered for publication in LPR.

Would you like examples? Check out 2015’s winning poem by Inga Lea Schmidt and 2014’s by Joseph Ross.

What are you waiting for? Submissions are due by March 1, 2016. Rules and submission guidelines can be found on the contest page www.prattlibrary.org/poetrycontest.

To learn more about how the collaboration between LPR and the Enoch Pratt began, read “Meet the Neighbors: Enoch Pratt Free Library.”  A reminder that the submissions period for the summer issue closes on March 1, 2016.