The writing center began February by holding its annual love poetry contest.

The contest is hosted by the writing center and accepts entries from ACU students. The ACU writing center is located on the main level of the Brown Library and helps students with writing assignments.

“At the writing center we love all things writing,” Dr. Cole Bennet, director of the writing center, said. “So not only do we help students who need help with papers but we also want to help sponsor opportunities for writing and we do that in February with the love poem.”

Dr. Bennet encourages students to submit as many submissions as they want. The submissions are then judged by members of the department of language and literature such as one of this year’s judges, Dr. Shelly Sanders, professor of Language and Literature

“[Students] want to be able to have a contest and really more than that,  just to be able to express themselves through poetry in a way that’s meaningful to them,” Dr. Sanders said. “So, I’m eager to think about and to read the poems and see how they’re making love poetry fresh.”

There are no parameters for student submissions. Students are encouraged to submit any form of love poem they have.

“Most people turn in kind of not tiny poems but like one-page poems,” Dr. Bennet said. “But if a person had an epic poem that was several pages long that would be welcome, or if a person had a really really short poignant poem that’d be welcome too.”

The winner of the contest will be posted on the writing centers social media. Also, the contest winner will receive a valentine’s day themed gift basket for their efforts.

The love poetry contest has been held for several years now. It was started by the writing center to accompany a spooky-themed short story in October.

“Every year whoever the judge is says ‘Wow some of these are really good especially coming from students at large, not students from a poetry class,’” Dr. Bennett said. “Every year there are some that stand out from that crowd that are quite good that surprise us.”

Submissions are due by Feb. 18 and are to be submitted by email to writingcenter@acu.edu.