An International Competition Sponsored by the Society of Classical Poets

Robert Frost is still one of America’s favorite poets. Library of Congress. Public Domain

The deadline for the largest traditional poetry contest in the English-speaking world is just a month away—Dec. 31, 2024.

Every year, the Society of Classical Poets (SCP) sponsors the International Poetry Competition, giving novices and seasoned poets a chance at a prize and at having their poetry published online.

What Is the Society of Classical Poets?

Founded in 2012 by Evan Mantyk and Joshua Philipp, the SPC has a lofty mission: “to preserve humankind’s artistic traditions” by building on 1,400 years of English poetry and promoting the work of good poets within that tradition by publishing and supporting their work.

In the short span of a decade, the Society has quickly grown into the largest venue for traditional poetry on the internet. Its website, which functions as an online journal, receives millions of visitors per year and thousands of poetry submissions from all over the world. Despite its popularity and the stiff competition one would assume this brings, editor Evan Mantyk welcomes submissions from novice poets. This applies to the annual competition and routine submissions.

A symposium of the Society of Classical Poets, held in New York in 2019. Emantyk/CC BY-SA 4.0

This welcoming attitude toward“ amateurs” (from the French, of being a “lover of” something) is in marked distinction from most other poetry journals. Run by academic gatekeepers, these literary publications are an elite club that often refuse to publish anything written with rhyme and meter.

Yet when people read verse for pleasure, they almost always turn to poets like Robert Frost, rather than obscure modernists like Ezra Pound, or the trendy free verse poets who tend to win the Pulitzer Prize today.

Best of the Best

The winners of the SCP annual competition are among the very best traditional poets in the world. Last year’s winner was the Florida-based poet Brian Yapko. Yapko is arguably the greatest living writer of dramatic verse monologues. In the spirit of Shakespeare and Robert Browning, he has an uncanny ability to blend psychological acuity with carefully controlled language and wordplay. His winning poem, “Farinelli,” is no exception.

"Portrait of Farinelli," 1734, by Bartolomeo Nazarie. The painting depicts a 29-year-old Farinelli.  Public Domain

Farinelli was the stage name of the 18th-century opera castrato, Carlo Broschi. Yapko imagined the singer reflecting on his life as an old man. Though wealthy, he is lonely and unhappy. When a friend comes to visit, Farinelli invites him to:

Come sit beside the fire—the heat, the flash; The crackling sounds are music. Watch the flame Transform once-living branches into ash!

The singer’s life, we come to understand, is like this fire. He recollects how his brother Riccardo arranged for him to be castrated before puberty to ensure his voice wouldn’t change. It would  secure income for their family through his singing. Although Farinelli had a wildly successful career and moved in the highest social circles, he concludes his monologue by wondering what might have been:

In secret, though, I ponder: might my voice Not still be splendid as a baritone? I’ll never know. He took away my choice. And like my life, my death shall be alone.

In a mere 48 lines, Yapko captures the emotional complexity of the opera singer’s life and puts a human face on a mysterious figure. Although it’s a historical fiction, it’s not difficult to draw parallels with one of the most contentious social issues of today.

A High School Competition

Each year, talented young people around the world submit works to the high school competition.

The winner last year was John Freeborn. At the time he was a senior at Logos Online School and hailed from Concordia, Kansas. His winning poem, “A Star,” has a rich vocabulary and complex syntax reminiscent of Milton and the Romantics.

A view of the night sky, in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, in 2014. Mathias Krumbholz/CC BY-SA 3.0

It opens with this nine-line whopper of a sentence:

O silent sphere of silver-soft-spun light, Thou crystal pearl strung on an airy veil Suffusing bright celestial delight In snowy glory o’er thy starry trail: The bridal necklace of the night inflame With purer ray, whose brighter progeny Unveils her blushing face, unmarred by shame, With vestal grace’s immortality— Or so at first you seemed to me.

Freeborn followed this lavish description by noting that the star has become a “faded spark/ Of silent photons” passing through “endless dark.” What began as a poem about an astronomical entity becomes an opportunity for metaphysical reflection: Is the universe governed by “empty Chance?” In the poem’s closing 14 lines—all one sentence—Freeborn made the case for a divine hand:

So beauty’s form subsists eternally, Unveiled incarnate from that changeless Source Who maketh every lesser being be And guides the heavens in their higher course … Who fills the heavens with His ordered grace And leaves in them, though dimmed, an imprint of His triune face.

In the marvelous concluding couplet, Freeborn pushes out the pentameter line and ends on a “fourteener”—an iambic heptameter line of 14 syllables. The poem is evocative of the Odes of Keats in its tone of praise, rich verbiage, and devotion to beauty. “A Star” is a worthy poetic effort, and a remarkable achievement for someone so young.

With each passing year, the annual contest gets a bit stiffer as more and more people discover the SCP and send in their work. Although not all entries are published, those that are may allow their authors to connect with other poets, receive helpful feedback, and improve their craft.

For more detailed information and see the competition guidelines, visit ClassicalPoets.org

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