Autumn does not belong to one country, one tradition, or one way of seeing.
Across cultures, the season can carry entirely different meanings: harvest and hunger, celebration and mourning, ancestors and children, moonlight and memory, migration and return, abundance and loss.
This contest asks you to look beyond the familiar Western autumn poem and discover another autumn.
THE CHALLENGE
Write a poem about Autumn seen through a cultural lens
You may write about your own cultural heritage if it reaches beyond standard Autumn tropes and you can also research and explore another culture. The poem may draw upon that culture's traditions, festivals, history, mythology, philosophy, literature, art, music, food, family customs, landscape, seasonal rituals, or relationship to time, harvest, ancestry, memory, or change.
The culture does not have to be identified. It may reveal itself naturally through the poem.
THE CENTRAL PRINCIPLE
Autumn is the subject
Culture is the lens
A poem does not become culturally distinctive simply because it is set in another country.
A poem about Japan should not merely replace American trees with Japanese trees.
A poem about India should not merely replace an American landscape with an Indian one.
A poem about China should not simply rename familiar Western autumn imagery.
The cultural perspective should change the way autumn is seen, felt, understood, or remembered.
WHAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR
Conventional Western autumn poetry that relies primarily on familiar seasonal imagery such as falling leaves, pumpkins, cider, sweaters, chilly evenings, generic nostalgia, or melancholy, without a meaningful cultural dimension, may be rejected.
Avoid stereotypes, caricatures, romanticized “exotic” imagery, or invented cultural details.
We are looking for cultural specificity, imagination, authenticity, and poetry.
LENGTH
No minimum number of lines. Maximum 60 lines
A poem of 6 lines may compete with a poem of 60
Every line should earn its place
TITLE REQUIREMENT
Your poem may have any title you choose, but the title must end with:
(DHR)
Example:
The Moon Above the Rice Fields (DHR)
NOTE: Poems without this requirement will be eliminated in the first round.
PRIMARY AWARDS
🥇 FIRST PLACE—The Full Moon Laureate
🥈 SECOND PLACE—The Harvest Moon Distinction
🥉 THIRD PLACE—The Lantern Moon Citation
HONORABLE MENTIONS—The Autumn Moon Circle
Additional poems of exceptional quality may receive Honorable Mention recognition.
SIX SPECIAL AWARDS
In addition to the three principal winners, six special awards will recognize particular forms of excellence.
🌕 THE AUTUMN MOON FROM WITHIN AWARD
For the poem in which the reader most completely inhabits another culture's sensory and emotional experience of autumn.
This award recognizes poems that transport us into lived experience—where we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel autumn through another tradition's eyes. The reader should not observe from outside but rather stand within the moment, the ritual, the landscape, the memory. Authenticity manifests as emotional truth, not explanation.
🍂 THE AUTUMN WE NEVER EXPECTED AWARD
For the most surprising vision of autumn
This award honors originality of conception. It may be an unexpected cultural connection, an unfamiliar tradition, an unusual subject, an unconventional structure, or a completely fresh understanding of what autumn can mean.
🌏 THE NATIVE MOON AWARD
For the poem that honors cultural form, structure, or poetic tradition to deepen its meaning.
The poem will draw upon a poetic form, structural device, or compositional principle rooted in or inspired by another culture—and use it with understanding and purpose. Whether it employs a traditional ghazal, haiku tradition, oral storytelling structure, or culturally-specific narrative form, the form should feel native to the poem's vision, never grafted on. Research should disappear into the poem.
🪶 THE IMAGE THAT OUTLIVES THE POEM AWARD
For the single most unforgettable poetic image or moment
A poem may contain many beautiful things, but this award belongs to the image, scene, line, or moment that remains in the reader's mind long after the poem has ended.
📜 THE MOON OF RARE FORM AWARD
For the most accomplished use of an old, uncommon, neglected, or rarely encountered poetic form, which could be something specific to the culture
The form should contribute meaningfully to the poem rather than exist merely as a technical exercise.
Sestinas are not eligible for this award because the sestina has already been featured in a previous PoetrySoup contest.
Traditional forms originating in cultures other than the poet's own are welcome, provided they are used with understanding and respect.
⏳ THE AUTUMN BETWEEN GENERATIONS AWARD
For the poem that most powerfully connects autumn with ancestry, memory, inheritance, mortality, or generations
This award recognizes poems in which the season becomes a bridge between those who came before, those living now, and those who will come after.
JUDGING
PRIMARY SCORING CATEGORIES (Total: 100%)
1. Cultural Depth & Authenticity—25%
How fully and organically the poem reveals a cultural lens. Authenticity, specificity, lived texture, and the sense that autumn is truly being seen through another worldview.
2. Integration of Culture & Autumn—20%
How inseparable the culture and the season become. Autumn must be transformed by the cultural perspective and not merely decorated with cultural references.
3. Originality & Freshness of Vision—15%
Surprise, invention, unexpected connections, new ways of seeing autumn. Avoiding clichés, stereotypes, and familiar Western tropes and abstractions.
4. Quality of Language & Imagery—15%
Precision, beauty, memorability, vividness, and the strength of individual lines or images.
5. Poetic Craft & Structure—15%
Form, lineation, pacing, musicality, clarity, and how well the poem’s architecture supports its meaning.
6. Emotional & Intellectual Resonance—10%
Depth of feeling, thoughtfulness, and the lingering impact on the reader.
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A technically accomplished poem may not prevail if its cultural perspective feels superficial.
A culturally fascinating poem may not prevail if the poetry itself is weak.
The strongest poems will do both.
ONE LAST THING
You do not have to explain the culture to us.
Show us
Let us discover autumn through a moon over a courtyard, a harvest table, an ancestral ceremony, a child's memory, a village road, a forgotten song, a particular food, a prayer, a painting, a mountain, a field, a festival, a family tradition, or something entirely your own.
Do not give us the autumn we already know.
Give us an autumn seen from somewhere else.
There are many autumns
There are many moons
Show us one we have never seen before
Good luck to all poets.