Poetry Contest
The Enoch Pratt Free Library Poetry Contest is an annual event open to Maryland poets age 18 and older.
2024 Poetry Contest Winner
Congratulations to Marc A. Drexler, whose poem "A Few Blocks" won the 2024 Enoch Pratt Free Library Poetry Contest, judged by Little Patuxent Review.
Runners-up were Kate Powell Shine, for "INFRINGED: A Second Amendment Erasure,” and Preet Bhela, for “Hollows.”
![Pratt Library Poetry Contest 2024 Winner Mark Drexler](/assets/images/special-programs/Untitled-design.jpg)
![Little Patuxent Review logo and summer 2024 cover](/assets/images/special-programs/poetry-contest-2024-LPR-summer-2024-cover-logo-left-gold-textured-background.jpg)
Marc A. Drexler has lived in Maryland most of his life since moving from Iowa to attend Johns Hopkins University. His poem "Baltimore, 1977" appears in Maryland in Poetry (2020). He has a poem on some Arlington Transit (ART) buses in Virginia as part of their Moving Words project through September 2024. He has been published by Split This Rock and The Mid-Atlantic Review. Marc has also served as a Community Teaching Assistant for the Coursera online course Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo), led by Al Filreis out of U Penn. He worked for many years at the Maryland Food Co-op on the University of Maryland, College Park campus and believes strongly in collectivism.
The poems by all three finalists will be published in Little Patuxent Review’s Summer 2024 issue and celebrated at a public event at the Central Library on Tuesday, August 20, at 6:30 p.m. The winning poem may also be turned into a collectible broadside. For more information, please email poetry@prattlibrary.org.
There were 277 poems submitted to the 2024 Poetry Contest, representing 64 cities and towns and 19 counties in Maryland plus Baltimore City.
Thank you to everyone who entered the 2024 Poetry Contest!
Check out our upcoming poetry events for adults:
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Join us at Enoch Pratt Free Library for this Hip Hop Series with Truth to Power! Come together for a listening session,…August 1, 4 PM
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Join us online for a discussion of the poetry of Philip Larkin. Andrew Motion will help guide us. Andrew Motion wrote the…August 10, 11 AM
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An empowering and rewarding experience to write an hour each week at the same time and place. This experience serves as powerful…August 15, 12 PM
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In celebration of the finalists of the 2024 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review,…August 20, 6:30 PM
![Browsing bookshelves at Central Library - a woman between bookshelves holding a book](/assets/card/browsing-bookshelves-at-Central-Library.jpg)
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