C O N T E S T S

2026 Annual Sacred Poetry Contest

2025 Advent Poetry Contest • 2025 Our Lady of the Rosary Contest • 2025 Adult Sacred Poetry Contest • 2025 Middle School Sacred Poetry Contests • Previous Contests

Contest Information

We welcome you to the 2026 Sacred Poetry Contest. We look forward to reading your work. This contest has been conceptualized and created to encourage poets to write the truths of God’s world and Word. We bring the best of the contemporary visionaries who use the medium of poetry to respond to curated artwork, that is both historic and contemporary.

Please read the guidelines and information below carefully. We encourage your review of prior years’ winners, which are available on our website.

The 2026 Sacred Poetry Contest opens November 15, 2026, and ends at 11:59 p.m. CST on March 31, 2026.

Guidelines for the Contest:

All poems submitted should be ekphrastic poems written in response to or inspired by one of the pieces of art presented in this contest.

An ekphrastic poem may take many different approaches to writing in response to a work of art. For instance, it may:

describe one or more of its features,
imagine the circumstances of the scene taking place,
give voice to a figure or object in the artwork, or
address the artwork as a whole, etc.

Two well-known examples of ekphrastic poems are Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats and Musee de Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden.

We are looking for poems which display the following characteristics.

Technical Proficiency: the poet employs devices of sound and language, form, and image, in fresh and powerful ways.
Creativity: the poem reveals a unique, unexpected approach. The poem speaks to the power of the visual image and taps into the eternal perspective of a spiritual journey toward the Trinitarian God.
The Search for Truth: the poem grapples with some aspect of the human condition within the story of salvation history.

Prizes:

First place prize: $275
Second place: $250
Third place: $175

The three prize-winning poems will be published on the Catholic Literary Arts website. The three winning poets will be awarded a membership at the Writer’s Level to Catholic Literary Arts. Winners must complete IRS Form W-9 before payment. Payment is only in U.S. dollars.

Specifics:

All poems must be original, unpublished in print, on the web, or in limited edition books.
Simultaneous submissions are not allowed.
Submissions should be primarily in the English language.
International submissions are welcome, provided Paypal will process the entry fee.
Line maximum per poem: 36 lines, excluding title or stanza breaks.
Format: all poems must be in 12 pt. font in a typeface of Times New Roman, Arial, or other easy to read typeface. We regret that we're unable to accept handwritten pages. Entries in pdf format are not accepted.
Form: all verse forms and free verse are accepted.
Entry Fee: $30 for up to three poems. Poets are limited to a single entry of up to three poems.
Entry is open to poets aged 16 or older on the date of submission.
All submissions are handled through Submittable.

Click the button to submit your poem.

Submit

Judging:

All judging is blind. The name of the poet must not appear on the poem itself or in the file name when the poem is submitted. There are no exceptions to the blind-judging requirements. The Submittable system will direct each poet to completion of a form that stores the poet's identifying information.

This year's final judge is award-winning poet and author Daniel Tobin. He will select winners from among the finalists selected by our preliminary judges.

Daniel Tobin is the author of ten books of poems, including Blood Labors, named one of the Best Poetry Books of the Year for 2018 by the New York Times and The Washington Independent Review of Books, The Stone in the Air: A Suite of Poems from the German of Paul Celan, and The Mansions, winner of the National Indie Excellence Award in Poetry.

His poetry has won many awards, among them the Massachusetts Book Award, the Julia Ward Howe Award, the Stephen Meringoff Award from the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, and fellowships from the NEA and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

His critical and editorial works include Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney, The Book of Irish American Poetry from the 18th /century to the Present, Poet’s Work, Poet’s Play: Essays on the Practice and the Art (with Pimone Triplett), To the Many: The Collected Early Works of Lola Ridge, Awake in America, On Serious Earth: Poetry and Transcendence and most recently The Odeon: Essays on Poetry. A chapbook, From the Distances of Sleep: Gloss Arias I, appeared in 2025 from Staircase Books. Dusk, Empire: New and Selected Poems, will appear in 2026.

Follow this link to Dan Tobin’s website.

File Type and Contest Parameters (Submittable):

One fee of $30. Up to three poems may be submitted. Only one submission per poet. Files may be .doc, .docx.

Instructions for Poets:

On the Submittable form, alongside the title for each poem, please include the number and title of the sacred image to which your poem is a response. The name of the poet must not appear in or on the poem itself or in the file name when submitted. A list of the images and artists is given for your convenience.

Click on an image for a larger view. Scroll through the larger images using the left and right arrows.

1. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - The Scourging at the Pillar*

2. Lorenzo Scott -The Baptism of Jesus [Courtesy of the Smithsonian Museums. © Smithsonian.)

4. Simon Silva - Amor A Todas Horas [Used by permission of the artist.]

6. Giotto di Bondone - Stigmatization of St. Francis

7. Thomas Wilmer Dewing -Tobias and the Angel

For more information about the artists, visit their website:

1. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - The Scourging at the Pillar*

3. Clarence Gagnon - Midnight Mass

4. Simon Silva - Amor A Todas Horas (Used by permission of the artist.)

5. El Greco – Pentecost

6. Giotto di Bondone - Stigmatization of St. Francis

7. Thomas Wilmer Dewing -Tobias and the Angel

8. Ivan Kramskoy – Herodias

Deadlines and Dates:

The contest opens for submissions 11/15/25.
The contest ends 3/31/26 at 11:59 p.m. CST.
Winners will be announced on the Catholic Literary Arts website by April 27, 2026, 11:59 p.m. CST.

The judge’s comments will be posted along with the text of the winning poems, visual image, and link to author’s websites, if applicable.

All non-winners will be notified by April 27, 2026, via Submittable.