Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Weak Verses for WT’s Bad Poetry Contest

Copy by Chip Chandler, 806-651-2124, [email protected]

CANYON, Texas - Odiously awful odes are sought for the 2026 West Texas A&M University Bad Poetry Contest, presented by Brick & Elm magazine.

The event will begin at 7 p.m. April 7 in the Sybil B. Harrington Fine Arts Complex Recital Hall on WT's Canyon campus.

Participants-either WT-affiliated or from the general public-should bring two or three original poems. Audience members also are welcome to simply enjoy, to use that word loosely, the readings.

"Critic Ben Lerner has argued that poetry 'has a fatal problem: poems.' All poems, he suggests, are doomed, unable to live up to our demands on the art," said Dr. Matthew Harrison, contest coordinator and WT's Wendy Marsh Professor for Shakespeare Studies. "At our annual Bad Poetry Competition, we gather together to celebrate poetry's failures and our own."

Poets are asked to keep their material in the PG-13 range.

For information, contact Harrison at [email protected].

The event is held by the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages in WT's Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts and Humanities.

Fostering an appreciation of the arts is a key mission of the University's long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World.

That plan is fueled by the historic One West comprehensive fundraising campaign, which reached its initial $125 million goal 18 months after publicly launching in September 2021. The campaign, which is now winding down, has raised more than $175 million.

About West Texas A&M University

A Regional Research University, West Texas A&M University is redefining excellence in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus, as well as the Harrington Academic Hall WTAMU Amarillo Center in downtown Amarillo. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT boasts an enrollment of more than 9,000 and offers 66 undergraduate degree programs, including eight associate degrees; and 44 graduate degrees, including an integrated bachelor's and master's degree, a specialist degree and two doctoral degrees. WT recently earned a Carnegie Foundation classification as a Research College and University. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 16 men's and women's athletics programs.

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