The Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry Prize competition is open to any writer who fits the NCLR definition of a North Carolina writer: anyone who currently lives in North Carolina, has lived in North Carolina, or uses North Carolina as subject matter. Poetry submissions do NOT have to relate to an issue’s special feature topic. Submit via this contest’s category on NCLR’s Submittable page between April 1-30
- We have dropped the submission fee, but poets must be either NCLR subscribers or members of the North Carolina Poetry Society to submit.
- If you are both a NCPS member and an NCLR subscriber, you can submit two performance video recordings.
- You can subscribe/join after submitting. Please do so by the contest deadline.
- The performed poem must be an original composition and the author of the piece must be the performer.
- The submitter must own the exclusive, transferable rights to all submission elements. This includes, but is not limited to, written text, audio, video, and images.
- Performance is the critical component of this contest.
- Sounds, instruments, or musical backgrounds are allowed to complement the delivery, but supplementary audios are neither required nor encouraged.
- If you elect to use these elements, they should not distract from your delivery. No deduction or special consideration will be made if the contestant does or does not include a musical background. The overall quality of the performance will be paramount. The poetry may be delivered from memory or with a copy in hand; however, performance is the critical component of this contest.