MONTEREY – Entries are now being accepted for regional winners in the 18th annual National Senior Poets Laureate Poetry Competition for American poets age 50 and older in which the California Senior Poet Laureate is sought. Deadline is June 30.

 

Winning poems of state senior poets laureate will be named in July, following which they advance to final rounds of competition from which the winner of $500 and the 2010 National Senior Poet Laureate title will be announced around Sept. 1.

 

Dewell H. Byrd, retired school administrator from Eureka, won the 2009 California Senior Poet Laureate Award with his poem "Portrait Day."

Winner of the 2009 National Senior Poet Laureate Award was Patricia Frolander, 66, A rancher from Sundance, Wyo.

 

Co-sponsors Vera-Jane Goodin Schultz and Wanda Sue Parrott founded the contest administered by Amy Kitchener’s Angels Without Wings Fdn. In 1993.

The 2009 winners can be seen in Golden Words Anthology, along with rules for the 2010 Senior Poets Laureate Contest, at www.amykitchenerfdn.org .