Montgomery County Poets Laureate
The Annual Montgomery Poet Laureate Competition is the foundation upon which the MCPL Program was built. The competition is the ultimate expression of the program’s mission; creating an ever expanding community of poets, supporting their work and providing opportunities for poets to elevate their visibility while also benefiting the community with their service project, many of which continue long beyond their tenure.
How does the competition work?
Each year MCPL recruits a celebrity poet with a national reputation, who along with two additional local Delaware Valley poets, adjudicate the submitted manuscripts.
The newly selected Montgomery County Poet Laureate is honored with an award in the amount of $500 along with a personalized statement about their work, which is shared through MCPL and other local organizations.
The Award is presented during an Award Ceremony and Reading, open to the public and attended by the celebrity judge and previous poets laureate to read with and welcome the newest member of their esteemed ranks.
Who can compete?
Poets of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to submit their poetry for review and adjudication in the annual competition. Poets must also be residents of Montgomery County. The window for submissions generally opens in early December and closes mid-February with the winner to be announced at the end of March.
The role of the Poet Laureate
The Poet Laureate functions as an ambassador for poetry in Montgomery County from April 1 of the year of his/her naming to March 31st of the following year. This role includes working with MCPL’s Executive Director, Joanne Leva, to develop a schedule of readings, workshops
Appearances may include the Forgotten Voices Poetry Group, Farley’s Bookshop First Thursday Poetry Reading Series, and the annual Caesura Poetry Festival. They may also hold the office of “
2026 MCPL Judge John Timpane
John Timpane is the former Books Editor and Theater Critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His work has appeared in, among other places, Sequoia, Apiary, Cleaver, Painted Bride Quarterly, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Vocabula Review, Tiferet, and in two chapbooks, Burning Bush (Windsor, Ontario: Judith Fitzgerald, 2010) and Buck in the Piano Room (Philadelphia: Moonstone, 2023). He is currently working on a second edition of Poetry for Dummies, which he coauthored in 2000. It is scheduled to come out in 2026. He lives in New Jersey.
Poetry by John
[Sijo]
Cruel only once, she, alone, shouted, “You, gone so long, are
Gone from me.” She walked to my house to say, “You, not the man
I loved.” Hair, then forehead, she – eyes, nostrils, lips – surfaced.
.
In this hospital, this battlefield, I, nurse, help the harried
Physician, take the hand as the wounded fade in this place,
This bed, this face, the evening carer whose hand holds mine.
.
Layer after layer, lie by lie, lost job, job interview,
Flight to Arizona, new job, he’ll call when he’s
Settled, whole other wife, life, don’t wait for him to come back.
.
In an echoing warehouse, out of a hill of fragments,
They reverse the explosion, piece together the airliner,
The names, the remainders, never the lives: in a smaller pile
Glasses, credit cards, shoes, comb, necklaces, dentures, doll.
Death is here but does not make everything garbage.
God is here but does not make everything all right.
.
Vs of voices sweep the midnight. A cold fox cries. Grizzled,
Back again, a lurid sliver of October moon tilts
As if night itself half-opened its tiger eye. I am
Sorry if I ever hurt anyone. I hope I hate
No one, nothing. May I grow old to the end, somehow
Nearing grace as the wild fields hemorrhage loosestrife.
2026 MCPL Judge John Timpane
John Timpane is the former Books Editor and Theater Critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His work...
Poets Laureate
