This contest is open to all poets, whether or not they are members of the CSPS. The Contest is managed by CSPS President, Maja Trochimczyk, and adjudicated by an experienced, published poet who is approved for this roe by the CSPS Board. A different poet is selected to judge the CSPS Poetry Contest each year. The Judge in 2026 is Mary Langer Thompson Ed.D. Poems must be postmarked or uploaded to our website or from March 1st through June 30th. Reading fees for all entries, domestic or international, are $3.00 per poem for members of CSPS and $6.00 per poem for non-members. There is an 80-line (two page) limit for each poem and a limit of 7 poems per poet.
AWARDS: There are three main prizes that include publication in the California Quarterly, a small cash prize and a certificate and six to ten Honorary Mentions. Poets winning 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes receive $100, $50 and $25, respectively. Six to ten Honorable Mentions may also be awarded. Winning entries will be announced on our website, blog, and in the CSPS Newsbriefs in September 2025 and published in the fourth issue of the CQ in December 2025The Honorable Mention poems and other submissions are forwarded to the CQ and the Poetry Letter editors for possible inclusion in the subsequent issues. Contest results are posted on our website.
250th BIRTHDAY PRIZE: :This year, the CSPS Board decided to add a special 250th Birthday Prize for the best poem celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 1776. The prize .consists of a certificate, publication and $76 in cash.
SUBMISSION: Please submit unpublished poems, written in English, with 80-line (two-page) limit per poem, with reading fees, using one of two options. If submitting by mail, send a cover letter with all poet information and a list of submitted poems, one copy of each poem with no poet identification, plus an email or SASE for contest results (only for those poets who do not have an email address), to:
Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President & Contest Chair
P.O. Box 4288, Sunland, California 91041-4288
More information: CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com
You may also upload your poems and pay reading fees at our website: www.californiastatepoetrysociety.org, by first registering your account with a password, and then login-in to upload poems and pay the fees.
If you find it too difficult to register on the website, you may submit your reading fees via PayPal with a note stating "Annual Contest Reading Fees" with your name and contact information, including State Poetry Society you are a member of, to PayPal account while also emailing the poems to CaliforniaStatePoetrySociety@gmail.com, Please make sure your poems were not published in any format (print or online) prior to submission.
CONTEST JUDGE - MARY LANGER THOMPSON
An award-winning poet and writer who currently lives in the high desert of California where she opened a public school as principal, Mary Langer Thompson was born in Illinois and traveled to California on Route 66. She credits her bi-weekly critique group with helping her to transition into writing fiction and children’s stories. She has been a secondary English teacher, adjunct professor, and elementary school principal. Thompson is active in the California Writer's Club, High Desert Branch, and was California's Senior Poet Laureate in 2012-13. She won the Jack London Award in 2019, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She has given poetry and writing workshops in schools, colleges, and prisons. Most recently she was the featured poet, along with Pat Connors, on Saturday Afternoon Poetry.
She edited From Silence to Speech: Women of the Bible Speak Out in 2015, published Poems in Water in 2014 and wrote two children books, How the Blue-Tongued Skink got His Blue Tongue; and The Gull Who Thought He Was Dull, both illustrated by Samantha Kickingbird. She also published several chapbooks.
Butterflies Alive!
"Watch your step!
Butterflies on the path."
I enter the screened garden where
a giant swallowtail hovers near
a blue hibiscus.
A painted lady flutters by.
I long for a cloudless sulphur
to land on me lightly, not
as the world presses.
A girl with hair
in simple cornrows
reads the sign that says
they live for only a week or two.
She confides, "afraid of dying."
I say these butterflies don't seem afraid.
They just want to sip nectar.
She says she's not sure about that.
We watch a mourning cloak briefly
close its wings.
by Mary Langer Thompson
Previously published in Quill and Parchment and Silver Birch
WINNERS OF THE 2025 ANNUAL POETRY CONTEST
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