During the Middle Ages, Wales began a festival featuring poets, musicians and singers and called it eisteddfod, which means "a meeting for competition."
Brigham Young University duplicates part of that festival with "Chairing of the Bard" awards for long poems or odes and "Crowning of the Poet" recognition for lyric poems. The BYU Eisteddfod is open to all, and winners have come from throughout the Intermountain West.The 1989 competition will offer a $300 first-place prize and a miniature carved chair for a long poem or ode of not fewer than 50 lines and not more than 150 lines. Topic this year is "the return," and all poems must use that as the theme. The second-place winner will receive $150.
The top winner in the lyric category (a poem not to exceed 100 lines) will be given $300 and a miniature crown; second place will be $150. Those interested in entering the lyric division must write on the theme, "the smoke rising."
Entries are always submitted under a pseudonym to insure that the judges' decisions are unbiased. Each entry should be accompanied by a sealed envelope (with the pseudonym on the outside) containing the name, address, telephone number and Social Security number of the competitor.
The fee will be $3 per entry, and no entries will be returned. Entries must be postmarked by Dec. 31, 1989, and should be sent to the Eisteddfod Poetry Competition, College of Humanities, 2054 JKHB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.