| 31st Annual Poetry Ink We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad, Ode, Free Verse. Join us for our 31st year of presenting 100 poets reading in alphabetical order. Deadline: October 11th LIVE Event: November 14th @ 2pm (Philadelphia Free Library, Parkway Center) |
Winner will receive
- $500 cash prize
- Publication and 25 copies of the book*
- Promotion on our website
- Reading at one of our venues in Philadelphia (or virtual reading, if preferred)
- Deadline: November 14th, 2026
| Veterans/Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when the Armistice with Germany went inot effect. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. There are still troops deployed across the world today. Deadline: Oct 18, 2026 Virtual Event: Nov 8, 2026 Live Reading Event: Nov. 11th, 2026 |
| New Voices 2026 Armistice Day, later known as Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. Deadline: November 1st, 2026 Live Event: Saturday, November 14th, 2026 Virtual Event: December 9th, 2026 |
| Winter Solstice The winter solstice occurs when either of Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky. Each polar region experiences continuous darkness or twilight around its winter solstice. The opposite event is the summer solstice. Deadline: Nov 22, 2026 Virtual Event: Dec 20, 2026 |
| Fighting Fascism: Remembering the Abraham Lincoln Battalion On the 90th anniversary (12/26/36) of the first 96 Americans to go to Spain The Abraham Lincoln Brigade consisted of roughly 2,800 American volunteers who traveled to Spain in 1936–1938 to defend the democratic Spanish Republic against General Francisco Franco’s fascist rebellion, which was backed by Hitler and Mussolini. They were part of the International Brigades and became the first fully integrated U.S. military force. The Volunteers: Mostly recurited by the Communist Party of the USA, the group included students, workers, journalists, and intellectuals. Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Martha Gellhorn, Errol Flynn, John Dos Passo, and Robert Capa all went to Spain to volunteer, in different capacities, to fight fascism during the war. Of the total of about 2,800 American volunteers, about 900 were killed in action. Integration: Decades before the U.S. military was desegregated, the Lincoln Brigade fought as an integrated unit and was commanded for a time by Oliver Law, one of the first African American commanders of an integrated American military force. Legacy: Despite being celebrated as anti-fascist heroes, they returned to an isolationist America where they faced government suspicion and persecution during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Deadline: December 6, 2026 Virtual Program: December 20, 2026 |