Each year the Poetry Society of Virginia sponsors contests in 25 categories, covering traditional forms of poetry, free verse, and effective 2023, spoken-word/verse video performance. Some of the categories with structured verse include: sonnets, limericks, and ekphrastic poems. Many of the categories include themes, such as: friendship, farm life, women, fatherhood, technology, nature, historical events, lyrical, and narrative poems. Some categories are open to poems in any style, with any theme. The book is not only a delight to read, but provides examples of outstanding poems that poets may use as inspiration to write their own prize-winning poems in future contests.

This book is a compendium of the first and second-place prize-winning poems from the 2023 Poetry Society of Virginia. This book is especially significant because this is the Centennial year for the Poetry Society of Virginia. If only we could travel back for a long Sunday afternoon in 1923 and meet our founders-how thrilled they would be by how far we've come. How they would love to read these poems!