2008 Poetry Contest

Presser Performing Arts Center and Mexico Ledger Presents:

Missouri Poets

T. S. Eliot
Raised in St. Louis, T. S. Eliot authored The Waste Land, considered by many as the most influential poetic work of the 20th century. In 1948, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.


Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, an author, poet, producer, playwright, and civil rights activist, was born in St. Louis. She is best known for her autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which was nominated for the National Book Award.


Carl Phillips
Carl Phillips' many awards include the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry. He was elected a chancellor of the Academy in 2006, and is a Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.

Other Missouri Poets

David Clewell
Eugene Field
Donald Finkel
H. L. Hix
Langston Hughes
Marianne Moore
Howard Nemerov
Naomi Shihab Nye
Kevin Prufer
Sherod Santos
James Tate
Sara Teasdale
Mona Van Duyn