The University of Iowa School of Social Work in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences announced the winners of the first annual National Poetry Contest for Social Workers.

Sixty-nine poems were submitted by students and alumni from 20 states across the country. The purpose of the contest was to acknowledge the creative talent of social workers and to draw attention to social work as a profession. The required format was a seven-line poem.

The judges of the contest were Ellen Szabo, Sara Deniz Akant, and Marcia Bollinger. Szabo is founder and director of Write Now, www.writenow.bz, a veteran writer, writing coach, instructor, and facilitator of creative writing workshops. She teaches the annual Creative Writing Seminar for Helping Professionals at the UI School of Social Work each summer. Deniz Akant graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in May 2012. Bollinger is public art coordinator for the City of Iowa City, including the Poetry in Public project.

The top three submissions were awarded cash prizes, and all submissions have been published in a chapbook and on the School of Social Work website. The first place winner also received half price admission to the annual Creative Writing Seminar for Helping Professionals, July 19-22.

• First Place-Anna Forbes, MSS 1992, Bryn Mawr College. An advocate, organizer, and writer, Forbes has worked in HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and outreach since 1985 and on women's health and rights since 1977. Now an independent consultant with an international client base, her work centers around women, HIV, gender, health, and rights.
• Second Place-Sara Staggs, LICSW, MSW, MPH. Staggs received her MSW in 2003, at the University of Houston. She is currently a senior trauma therapist for the D.C. Rape Crisis Center in Washington, D.C.
• Third Place-Mary Ann Getse, MSW, 1979, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University. Getse retired two years ago following a 30-year career in social work primarily in the school district of Waukesha in Wisconsin. Currently she works part-time for the district running support groups for children.
• Honorable Mention-Mignonette Al-Malik, currently an MSW student at the University of Indiana, at the Indianapolis campus. She is a skills instructor at Gallahue Mental Health Center in Indianapolis.

For those interested in participating in the 2014 Poetry Contest, online submissions can be made at www.uiowa.edu/~socialwk/creativewriting/onlinesubmission.shtml.