Student Poetry and Art Opportunity

Every year, River of Words® (ROW) conducts an international environmental poetry and art competition in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book for youth ages 5 to 19 in grades K-12. This free contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live and to express what they discover through poetry and art.

Iowa entries not chosen as finalists or grand prize winners in the international contest are returned to IOWATER, where they are judged in a statewide IOWA River of Words® Environmental Poetry and Art competition. The IOWATER Volunteer Water Monitoring Program of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources coordinates the IOWA River of Words® Environmental Poetry and Art competition.

Over 350 students from Iowa entered the 2008 contest either through their schools, community art centers, local libraries or on their own. Because of the large number of quality Iowa entries, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art generously offered to host a juried River of Words® IOWA Environmental Poetry and Art Exhibit. Fifty-one works of poetry and art were selected to be included in the exhibit, held August 30 through September 21, 2008.

If your students would be interested in entering the contest for 2009, entries must be sent to:

River of Words, PO Box 4000-J
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA
Phone: 510-548-POEM (7636)
Fax: 510-548-2095

ROW returns Iowa's entries to IOWATER in April for state competition and Iowa’s state winners are chosen in May.

For more information and entry forms click here or contact Pat Lohmann, IOWA River of Words Coordinator, at (319) 335-1593 or Pat.Lohmann@dnr.iowa.gov.

The deadline for entries is February 15, 2009.