October Project Poetry Contest Returns for 8th Year This April
Co-founded by poet Julie Flanders, vocalist Marina Belica, and composer Emil Adler, the international competition launched in 2019 will celebrate National Poetry Month with inaugural poet Richard Blanco among this year's distinguished judges.
The October Project Poetry Contest, an international competition co-founded by award-winning poet and lyricist Julie Flanders, vocalist and executive producer Marina Belica, and composer Emil Adler, returns for its eighth year this April in celebration of National Poetry Month.
Launched in 2019, the contest was created to support and elevate the art of poetry, attracting both emerging and established poets from across the United States and internationally.
October Project is an award-winning, genre-defying musical collective whose work bridges pop, classical, choral, and a cappella traditions. Led by the creative collaboration of Flanders, Adler, and Belica, the group has reached millions of listeners through recordings on Sony/Epic and independent releases. Their choral work, including The Book of Rounds: 21 Songs of Grace, has traveled globally-most recently through a viral performance of "Turn" by 400 singers of the Vancouver Youth Choir, shared widely across the international choral community. This year they have been invited by Make Music NYC to present RIVER OF SONG, a jubilant, flashmob parade of JOY through Riverside Park in NYC for the 20th Anniversary of this annual city-wide event.
Flanders, a three-time Amazon #1 bestselling poet and the author of Watermarked, Shadow Breathing, and Joyride, has spent over a decade inviting others into a daily creative practice-sharing a new poem each day of April and originating the now-global ritual of #HaikuTuesday. A new book of poetry is planned for release this year.
This year's distinguished judging panel includes:
- Richard Blanco, Inaugural Poet for President Barack Obama and National Humanities Medal recipient
- Tom Toce, Lead Judge and President of the Board at New York's Urban Stages
- Kirsty Manning, Best-selling Australian author of seven historical novels
- Chiwenite Onyekwelu, Award-winning Nigerian poet
- Sam Aureli, 2025 October Project contest winner
The contest will open on April 1 and close on April 30 at 11:59 PM EDT. For more information and to enter, please visit the October Project Poetry Contest website.
Add your voice to the chorus!
ABOUT JULIE FLANDERS, POET/LYRICIST
With deceptively simple words, Flanders guides readers through the mysteries of the familiar to a deeper understanding of life and love, death and loss, miracles of perception, and the magic of the ordinary. Deeply satisfying, her poems are easily entered for a first read and richly reward repetition.
Flanders is an Amazon #1 Best-Seller in Poetry for each of her three collections, Watermarked, Shadow Breathing, and Joyride. Following upon the success of her animated poem "Doubts," an Official Selection at 29 film festivals, she won a 2024 Bronze Telly in Writing for an experimental short of her poem, "The Big Sadness."
For the last 12 years, Flanders has posted a new original poem on social media each day in April during National Poetry Month, and co-founded the international poetry contest that has engaged poets and poems from all over the world. She is also the originator of the hashtag #haikuTuesday, creating and encouraging posts of haikus every Tuesday, year-round, contributing an archive of hundreds of poems and haikus online ever since.
Flanders is also a sought-after Creative Consultant with expertise in leadership, trance states, and neuro-linguistics. Her clients include world-changers from the fields of culture, technology, thought authorship, and the arts.
• Visit the Poetry Contest website here
• Visit the October Project website here
• Visit Julie Flanders' poetry website here
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