Bliss Morehead Grant Gives East End Poets 1,000 More Reasons to Rhyme

The Bliss Morehead Grant is back once more, calling local poets to rhyme and score. With $1,000 up for grabs this spring, East End wordsmiths, let your verses sing.

The fourth-annual Twin Forks poetry competition is open to unpublished poets who are 17 or older and live on the East End. The deadline to enter is March 14, the winner will be announced April 5, and the winner and runners-up will be invited to a poetry reading at the Shelter Island Public Library on April 25.

The contest is named for Bliss Morehead, who was a resident of Shelter Island who wrote about “the frustrating and occasionally illuminating work we all take upon ourselves when we are snatched up by the demanding nanny/muse and forced to admit that yes, we are poets. Or are attempting to be poets.”

Morehead was the founder of the Shelter Island Poetry Project, which produced annual April Poetry Month readings at the Shelter Island Library revolving around yearly themes. The theme for this year’s reading is “Beginnings and Endings.”

Poets seeking to enter can register on the Shelter Island Public Library website, contact Liz Larsen at llarsen@silibrary.org or visit the Shelter Island Public Library in person.