Established in 1923, the Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Competition is the oldest continuously running poetry contest for undergraduate students in the United States. Each year, three celebrated poets judge the competition, in which poets from Mount Holyoke and five other institutions read their poems. The judges also give readings from their own work and announce the winner following their reading.

Previous contestants and judges in the Glascock competition include many distinguished writers: Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Muriel Rukeyser, James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, Diana Chang, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Seamus Heaney, Marilyn Nelson, David Lehman, Myung Mi Kim, Elizabeth Alexander, Eileen Myles, Carl Phillips, Marilyn Chin, Fred Moten, Evie Shockley, Hoa Nguyen, Maggie Nelson, and Erica Dawson, among others.

The events are sponsored by the Kathryn Irene Glascock Memorial Fund, the Joyce Horner Poetry Prize, the Charles and Rosanna Batchelor Memorial Fund, the Weissman Center for Leadership, and the Department of English at Mount Holyoke College.

The 2025 contest will take place on Thursday and Friday, April 3 and 4, with the contestants’ reading happening on April 3 at 5:30 p.m. in the Gamble Auditorium (Art Building) and the judges’ reading on April 4 at 12:00 p.m. in the Stimson Room (Williston Library). For the first time in ninety-seven years, all the contestants will represent historically women’s and gender-diverse colleges, including Hollins, Smith, Spelman, Vassar, and Wellesley.