New York State of Poetry (NYSP) is a new, free program to engage high school students with the art of poetry. Students will be invited to read and write poems, with a chance to be published in a statewide student anthology and read their poems at readings during National Poetry Month. 

Teachers receive resources to engage their students with a collection of classic and contemporary poems, including a copy of the classic reference book, Handbook of Poetic Forms, by Ron Padgett.

Participating students will write poems inspired by a poem from the NYSP Poetry Collection. This can be a response, an “after” poem, a call and response poem, a golden shovel poem, or another form that takes inspiration from the poem. Participating schools will receive further guidance and resources about writing response poems. 

Registered schools will nominate one student poem to represent their school in a statewide anthology. All participating schools and students will receive a printed copy of the anthology. Students will be invited to read their original poems at an in-person poetry reading. In addition, two outstanding poems will be recognized with cash prizes for students and their schools.

This program is offered by Teachers & Writers Collaboration in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts.

The New York State Council on the Arts has determined that New York State will not participate in the national Poetry Out Loud program this year. In an effort to continue engaging high school students across the state with the art of poetry, T&W is launching New York State of Poetry. 

Note: New York State of Poetry is not a poetry recitation competition. The focus of this program is the creation and publication of original student poems.

NYSP is launching as a pilot program for 2025-2026. While it does not include a poetry recitation competition at its current stage, that may change. We will spend the year facilitating the NYSP pilot programming and planning a fuller, more sustainable program for the future based on participant input.

All high school students in New York State in grades 9-12 are eligible to participate in NYSP through their school or through a group registered with NYSP. If a student is not affiliated with a school or group participating in NYSP, they may register to participate as an individual. Eighth grade students are eligible to participate if they attend an 8-12 school. 

Participants must write an original poem based on one of the 30 poems included in the NYSP Poetry Collection. Students may not use poems outside of this collection. 

All poem submissions, both from schools/organizations and individual students, must be submitted to NYSP by February 6, 2026. 

Each submission requires a signed release form in order to be considered for publication in the NYSP anthology. The release form can be found here.

Students can participate in NYSP as part of a school/organization or as individual students. Individual students may only participate if they are not affiliated with a school, organization, or community group (homeschooled students, for example). 

All interested participants must register for NYSP via their school/organization or as an individual student using this registration form. Registration will remain open through December 2025.

There is no limit on the number of students who can participate in each school or organization’s program. However, only one student from each school will have their poem published in the state anthology.

Please review the question below "How does a school select a poem for the state anthology?" for more information on selecting a student poem to represent your school/organization. Additionally information can also be found in the Teacher and Organizer toolkit. 

Each participating school or organization will receive a Teacher and Organizer Toolkit including a list of selected poems that are eligible for students to use to write original response poems. The Toolkit will also include ideas and resources for facilitating poetry workshops and generative writing opportunities. 

Schools/organizations might engage students with writing during in-class instruction as part of a class curriculum, after school or in weekend programs, in facilitated small groups or one-on-one mentoring sessions.

It’s up to each school/organization to determine how they want to select the student poem that will be submitted to the NYSP anthology. Once all student poems have been written, each school/organization will choose their own method for selecting the poem to be published in the state anthology. The Teacher and Organizer Toolkit will also include guidance for this, including template examples like peer voting or judging panels. 

For individual students who are not affiliated with a school, organization, or community group registered for NYSP, NYSP will assemble a panel of judges to select one poem to represent the individual student submission pool.

The selected student poem will be printed in an anthology including poems from all participating schools/organizations across New York State. All selected students and their school/organization will receive a printed copy of the printed anthology. Two outstanding student poems will be given a cash prize. 

Students will also be invited to participate in one of two in-person readings in April 2026, during National Poetry Month. Dates, times, and locations for the readings will be announced.

No participant in NYSP may use AI Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc. to generate their original response poem. The US Copyright Office has noted that anything created using an LLM is not applicable to full copyright protections as original, generative work would be. Therefore, any student poem that uses the assistance of an LLM would not be eligible for publication in the NYSP state-wide anthology and should not be submitted. 

Teachers & Writers staff are happy to help you plan how to implement the NYSP program at your school. To contact us, please email nysp@twc.org or call 212-691-6590.