Student Contest 2025
Ekphrastic
October 1, 2025-January 15, 2026
For the fourth year, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets joins forces with the Woodson Art Museum, inviting high school students to participate in a statewide ekphrastic poetry competition. Students will write and submit poems inspired by artwork images from the Woodson Art Museum’s collection. Entries accepted October 1, 2025, through January 15, 2026.
An installation of the winning poems and collection artworks will follow in April during National Poetry Month and the Museum will hold a reception for the winning poets, their families, and educators April 11, 2026. In addition, winning poems are announced on WFOP’s contest results page.
Cash prizes:
1st place $75
2nd place $50
3rd place $25
Submission Period: October 1, 2025-January 15, 2026. Poems arriving after 11:59 p.m on January 15, 2026 will not be considered.
Submission Guidelines:
Students may enter ONE original ekphrastic poem based on one of the contest artworks for the year. Use of generative AI is not permitted.
Maximum length: 24 lines (which includes stanza breaks, but not the title). We cannot consider longer poems, multiple entries or collaborative poems.
Line length: 60-character limit, including spaces and indents.
Students need to be currently attending high school in Wisconsin.
To Submit:
Please complete this Google form.
Winners will be notified via email and posted at: wfop.org/contests-results.
Featured Art
Learn more about the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum on their website.
About Freesia McKee
Freesia McKee is a poet who grew up in Milwaukee. Since 2023, she has served as an Assistant Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Freesia writes about history, place, gender, and genre, and her work has appeared in The Journal, Fugue, Puerto del Sol, Cleaver, ellipses, Mobius, Stoneboat, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal as well as three chapbooks, How Distant the City (Headmistress Press), Hummingbird Vows (Bottlecap Press), and City of Honesty (Water’s Edge Press). Freesia served as the Fall 2022 Poet in Residence at Ripon College. Her scholarly research interests include empathy in the classroom and ecopoetics pedagogy.