Prompt: Parks

Our July Call for Submissions is about parks. It's summer here and I can often be found walking, sitting and reading, and taking photos in one of the local parks. Parks large and small are an escape to nature. It might be a small pocket park in a big city or a huge State or National Park.

For the August issue, we will be seeking poems about parks. There are many poems to consider as examples. I chose a rather obscure poet, Helen Hoyt, who is quite straightforward in her poem, "Park Going to Sleep," about a park entering the night.

I also considered using "Dog Park" by Brandon Brown which begins:
I told Alli I really wanted
to write a poem called “Dog Park.”
In bed she’s like you could make it
a New Yorker poem, where you
go to a dog park and then have some
huge epiphany...

For contrast, consider some of these park poems:
The Park by David St. John
A Walk Round the Park by Sandra Lim
In the Park by Maxine Kumin
Central Park, Carousel by Meena Alexander

There is a collection of 50 poems by 50 different poets writing about a National Park in each of the United States that was part of an NEA grant "Imagine Our Parks with Poems."

Time for you to imagine a park within a poem. A simple summer prompt that might be as light as a cold glass of lemonade, or perhaps you will find there some huge New Yorker epiphany.

This prompt was inspired by browsing "Imagine Our Parks with Poems," part of Imagine Your Parks, a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts created in partnership with the National Park Service to support projects that use the arts to engage people with the memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System. The Academy of American Poets commissioned fifty poets to write poems about a park in each of the fifty states.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 31, 2024

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