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| Image by Antonios Ntoumas from Pixabay |
In America, it already started with Memorial Day weekend but it officially starts with a solstice which occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. Technically, the June solstice is the exact instant of time when the Sun is directly overhead the Tropic of Cancer. In 2022, this happens on June 21 at 09:13 UTC. For the Northern Hemisphere, we have maximum tilt so it is summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is conversely at minimum tilt and so it is winter.
I don't think I am alone in associating summer with the beach. I grew up in New Jersey where we go "down the shore" in the summer. I have been to the beach every summer of my life.
Poets often go to the beach in their poems. There are many. Some love the beach. But not all of the poets.
"Beaches. Why I Don’t Care For Them" says it quite clearly. That poem by Wanda Coleman talks about the associations she has with the beach.
years of being ashamed/my sometimes
fat, ordinary body. years later shame passed
left a sad aftertaste. mama threatening to beat me if i got
my hair wet. curses as she brushes the sand out, "it's gonna
break it off—it's gonna ruin your scalp."
or the tall blond haired gold/bronze-muscled
lifeguards who played with the little white ones but gawked at us like we were lepers...
For this summer prompt, we are looking for poems about summer at the beach. We are not so much thinking of poems like Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." They can be good or bad associations with the time and place. They can be poems that are not clearly either.
In our model poem, "Beachcomber," Stanley Moss recounts two summer beach encounters. One is not good or bad - just odd. The other experience is also odd but I would classify it as amazing.
Another time, washed up on a Montauk dune,
found a Chianti wine bottle
with a letter in it. I read to myself
a child’s handwriting: “Hello,
let’s make friends. Please call,” she gave her phone number...
Let's see what you find at the beach this summer.
Because of our double-prompt/ double-issue, be sure to indicate in the subject line of your email for this prompt submission summer beach.
Submissions will be accepted now through July 31
Visit our website at poetsonline.org
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