Contests

Poetry Contest: Anything You Like!

Each of the bugs had a favorite story in this months’s Cricket. Zoot really identified with Kevin the musician in “Stage Fright,” while Pudding reminisced about all her performances on stage. Cricket and Marty loved the nautical cover and tales of the sea, and have been
talking like pirates ever since. (Arr!) Ladybug was thrilled by how Barbara Rose Johns led students to fight injustice in “The Girl from the Tarpaper School.” And after reading “The Pirate King,” she felt sooo grateful for having a calm and affectionate pet like Pussywillow! Muffin longed to join the Nurses Frontier Service and ride with “Mary on Horseback.” All the bugs felt poetically inspired by different ideas and couldn’t agree on a contest. So for this month’s contest we’d like you to write a poem on . . . anything you like!

Perhaps you’ll be inspired by one of your favorite Cricket stories, like the bugs. Maybe you’ll write a beautiful poem about the sea, or a funny or adventurous poem about pirates, or about a cat or other pet with a lot of attitude. Will you write about your experience performing before an audience? Or an ode dedicated to one of your heroes from history? Or will you write about something else altogether, such as the arrival of spring?

Whatever you choose, everybuggy will be scribbling their verse around the Cricket Country mailbox, waiting to receive your best poem of 24 lines or less on—whatever you like!

  • (Show Rules)
    Here are the only rules: (Hide Rules)
    1. Your contest entry must be your very own original work. Ideas and words should not be copied.
    2. If you're 14 years old or younger, your entry must be signed by your parent or guardian, saying it is your own original work, that no help was given, and granting Cricket permission to publish prizewinning entries in the September 2013 issue or on our Web site. If you're older than 14, you must sign your own work, verifying that it is original.
    3. Be sure to include your name, age, and full address on your entry.
    4. Only one entry per person, please.
    5. If you want your work returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for each entry.
    6. Incomplete entries cannot be considered. Your entry will be incomplete if you forget to include your age or a signature verifying that your work is original.
    7. Your entry must be received by March 25, 2014.
    8. Send entries to:
      Cricket League
      P.O. Box 300
      Peru, IL 61354