The Shelter Island Public Library is now accepting applications for its fourth annual Bliss Morehead Poetry Grant.
This grant of $1,000.00 is awarded each April to the annual poetry competition winner. Applicants must be unpublished poets aged 17 or older and reside on the East End of Long Island (Riverhead and points east).
Bliss Morehead was a resident of Shelter Island who dedicated much of her life to the art of poetry. As a student of poetry, and a gifted poet herself, she sought to share “this most complex of cultural achievements,” according to the library.
Ms. Morehead was the founder and curator of the Shelter Island Poetry Project, which produced the annual April Poetry Month readings at the Shelter Island Library. As the curator of the Poetry Project, she called upon poets and readers of poetry to present carefully selected poems revolving around yearly themes.
The theme for 2025 is “Beginnings and Endings.”
Bliss wrote tirelessly about what she called “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 bepoets.”
The library hopes the grant will encourage those who have taken up the challenge of writing poetry to share their creations.
To apply for this grant, register on the Shelter Island Public Library website or contact Liz Larsen at llarsen@silibrary.org to receive an application and guidelines.
Submissions can be made on the Shelter Island Public Library website or in person.
The deadline for entries is Friday, March 14, 2025.
The winner and runners-up will be announced on April 5 and will be invited to a poetry reading at the library on April 25.
The library thanks the late Mike Zisser for this memorial to his talented wife, Bliss Morehead.
