Student Reader Participation

Student poets are the heart of the Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival. We are proud to offer 26 Sarah Lawrence students (13 graduates and 13 undergraduates) a chance to read with the invited guest and faculty poets each year.

Here are the guidelines for student submissions and an explanation of the selection process:

Submission Guidelines

Students may submit up to three poems. The maximum total submission length is six pages. Submissions should include a cover page with the student’s name, phone number, email address, year in school, and titles of submitted poems. The poetry manuscript itself must not list the poet’s name or any other identifying information.

Students must submit their work via email to poetryfestival@gm.slc.edu. Submissions will be accepted October 12-November 21, 2007. If you do not receive a confirmation-of-receipt email, then please re-send your submission!

Student Reader Selection

Selection is by blind process. Upon receipt, submissions are immediately assigned an identifying number. The work is then disseminated, with only these identifying numbers attached, to the Committee and faculty readers involved in the determination process. Selection is based on the strength and originality of the work, as well as the compatibility of that work with the guest and faculty poets. Students who have read at previous Festivals are permitted to submit again each year.

All students who have submitted poems will be notified of the Committee’s decision before winter break. Each student who has been selected will read with the guest or faculty poet whose work the committee believes most closely compliments the student’s. This reading schedule will not be available until shortly before the Festival.

Although members of the Student Organizing Committee who are completing their final year at Sarah Lawrence have the option of being automatically included if they have not read at the Festival before, no committee members will be reading this year.

After Selection

Once students are selected, they should promptly provide the Student Organizing Committee with a short bio, which will appear in the Festival’s program and on its website. On the day of the event, student poets will sign in at the registration table at least twenty minutes before their scheduled reading. They will also be asked to bring a separate, clean copy of the work they will be reading to the registration table. This work will be combined with the other student poems read at the Festival that year and archived by the Sarah Lawrence College Library.