Lincoln County’s annual poetry contest will open Tuesday, April 4 and close Saturday April 29, with entries being accepted at all county librarys - Libby, Troy and Eureka. Youth entries can be submitted to the front office of participating schools.

Montana’s current Poet Laureate [Michael] Earl Craig will be judging the adult contest. Craig has published his poetry widely and his most recent book of poems is “Talkativeness.” He lives in the Shields Valley north of Livingston and is a professional farrier.

Published poet and librarian Adrian Kien of Butte will be judging youth and junior entries.

Youth age range is sixth grade through 12th grade, and junior is Kindergarten through fifth grade.

Troy’s librarian Stacey Walenter has been facilitating the contest for the past 6 years.

“It keeps on growing,” Walenter said. “We started with under 100 entries and last year we received 400.”

The contest is overseen by county libraries, and subsidised by a small grant from Humanities Montana. “The Friends of the Library contribute the prizes - gift cards to local businesses, and the judges do it out of the kindness of their hearts” says Walenter “Humanities helps out with travel expenses for the judges.”

This year there is no theme for the contest, so participants can be entirely creative with their poems. “We’ve had themes in the past” says Walenter “but we found themeless works best for most people.”

The contest will culminate in an extravaganza to announce the winners, held on Thursday, May 11 at Aunt T’s coffee shop in Libby at 6 p.m. After presentations by the judges, the winners of each category will be announced and then the winning entries will be read by their authors, if present.