Announcing the 11th Annual 30 for 30 Poetry Celebration for National Poetry Month

I’m pleased to announce the eleventh annual 30 for 30 Poetry Celebration, sponsored by Potomac Review, which will once again take place this year on my web site, www.mikemaggio.net

This year’s theme is as follows:

Dreaming of Dreams.  Specifically, I’d like you to take one of your dreams or nightmares and transform it into a poem.  The poem should be dreamlike in its execution and should immerse the reader into a dreamlike experience. Surrealism is the key here.

Your dreamlike poem should be between 20 and 40 lines (no more, no less).

       To participate, please follow these instructions:

1. Send an email to mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net stating your intent to participate. Do not send any poems at this time but do state in your email where you are from.
2. The first 30 poets who respond to this call will be selected to submit their poem.
3. Once the 30-poet limit has been reached, I will randomly assign each poet a day in April when their poem will be due.
4. Poets must submit their poem at least one day before it is to be posted. Earlier submissions are welcome, but don’t rush your poem.
5. All poems must be written by the submitting author. Poems should not contain any racist or sexist language.
6. Poems must be submitted as a Word document or in RTF format (not in the text of the email or in PDF format).
7. Poets should include a short 1–2-line bio with their poem. A copyright statement should also be included (e.g., Copyright 2024 by [your name]).
8. All rights automatically revert to the author. Please note that if your poem appears on this web site, it is considered by most journals to have been previously published.
9. To promote community and discussion, readers and participants are encouraged to post comments on the web site about each of the poems.
10. At the end of the month, our judge will select the winning poem.
11. The winning poet will receive a free one-year subscription to Potomac Review.
12. All poems will be archived on mikemaggio.net. (I am working with George Mason University to archive the web site in their collection which now houses my papers, so your work will be preserved there for future researchers).

This year’s judge is Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s Poet Laureate and creator and host of The Poet and the Poem, broadcast from the Library of Congress.

If you have any questions, please email mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net. I look forward to your participation.