A Contest and Some Inspiration

Narrative magazine's Eighth Annual Poetry Contest opens May 18, and to get you in the mood, every day leading up to the contest they are featuring a superlative poem, by a master or an emerging writer. Here are 30 poems to inspire you.

And here's a look at last year's winners.

Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize Open

Manuscripts being accepted for the first Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize.

The winner has his or her chapbook published as both print and eBook and receives twenty copies of the print version, a $250 prize and - rather wonderfully - an amethyst depression-glass trophy cup (circa 1930's).

Electronic submissions only of 17-24 pages of poetry.

The judge is Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

Full details athttp://twosylviaspress.com/chapbook-prize.html

Tiferet Writing Contest

Enter the 2014 Tiferet Writing Contest and submit to possibly win $400 for best poem, story or essay. $1,200 will be awarded in prizes.

This year's judges are Alfred Corn for Poetry, Jacqueline Sheehan for Fiction, and Charles Euchner for Nonfiction.

Tiferet editors will select ten finalists to be sent to the judges. One winner and three honorable mentions will be selected by the judges in each category. Results will be announced this coming fall.

All submissions are considered for publication in the journal and your $15 contest entry fee brings you digital copies of a full year's subscription to Tiferet (a $24.95 value).

They are accepting submissions until June 1, 2014

Submit your entry here

Carriage House Poetry Prize: Observance of Arbor Day

The Carriage House Poetry Series and The Fanwood Shade Tree Commission announce The Carriage House Poetry Prize in Observance of Arbor Day 2014.

A first prize of $250 and publication in the Autumn 2014 print issue of TIFERET: Literature, Art, and The Creative Spirit. Selected finalists will receive certificates.

Guidelines

• Entries should consist of no more than two poems—no more than 40 lines each.
• Each poem must be single-spaced on a separate sheet of paper.
• Submit 2 copies of each poem, one copy with the poet’s name, address, phone number,and email address in the upper right corner.
• Poems must be previously unpublished and must contain reference to a tree or trees (not necessarily poems about trees). Any style or form. (Not re-writes or take-offs on Joyce Kilmer’s famous poem “Trees.” Judges will look for poems characterized by technical proficiency, striking imagery and strong sound quality.)
• Entry is free.
• Poems will not be returned, so please keep a copy for your files.
• Deadline: In-hand by March 1, 2014. Winners will be notified via email by April 7, 2014.

Send entries via snail mail to:

Carriage House Poetry Prize

c/o Adele Kenny & Tom Plante
Fanwood Borough Hall
75 North Martine Avenue
Fanwood, NJ 07023


Judges
Tom Plante (Publisher/Editor Exit 13 Magazine)
Linda Radice (Award Winning Poet & Fanwood Arts Council Member)

Final Judges
Donna Baier Stein – Founder/publisher of Tiferet; Pen/New England Discovery Award & NJ State Arts Council Fellowship recipient; awards from the Poetry Societies of Virginia and New England; founding poetry editor of Bellevue Literary Review; Breadloaf Writers Conference scholarship; Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars fellowship; author of Sometimes You Sense the Difference; Iowa fiction awards finalist for Sympathetic People (published by Serving House Press, 2013).

Adele Kenny – Author of 23 books (poetry & nonfiction); Carriage House Poetry Series founder/director; Fanwood’s Poet Laureate (appointed March 2012), Tiferet Poetry Editor; two NJ State Arts Council poetry fellowships; Writers Digest Poetry Award; Thomas Merton Poetry Award; first place Merit Book Award; 2012 International Book Award; former creative writing professor (College of New Rochelle); twice featured at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival; has read in the US, England, Ireland, and France.

Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards

The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards are sponsored by The Poetry Center at PCCC, and honor Paterson poet Allen Ginsberg’s contribution to American Literature.

The first prize winner will receive $1,000; second, $200; and third $100.

The entry fee of $18 covers the cost of a subscription to The Paterson Literary Review, in which the winning poems will be published. The submissions deadline is April 1.

Winners will be asked to participate in a reading to take place in Paterson’s Historic District.

For guidelines and an entry form, go to www.pccc.edu/poetry or send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:
Maria Mazziotti Gillan,
Executive Director,
Poetry Center,
Passaic County Community College,
One College Boulevard,
Paterson, N.J. 07505-1179.

Be sure to mark the envelope with the contest name.

Emily Dickinson First Book Award

The Poetry Foundation, the publisher of Poetry magazine, is pleased to announce the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. The occasional award is designed to recognize an American poet of at least 40 years of age who has yet to publish a first collection of poetry.

The winning poet will have one book-length poetry manuscript published by Graywolf Press. In addition to publication and promotion of the manuscript, the winner will receive a prize of $10,000.

Previous winners of the award include Landis Everson and Brian Culhane.

Manuscripts will be accepted from January 16 to February 17, 2012. The winner will be notified by April 30, 2012, and publicly announced at the Pegasus Awards ceremony in 2012.

For full contest rules, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org/dickinsonaward

The Green Heron Poetry Project

The Upper Delaware Writers Collective Announces

The 2011 Green Heron Poetry Project
http://www.upperdelawarewriterscollective.com

The Upper Delaware Writers Collective (UDWC) was founded in 1993 as a charity organization. Based in Sullivan County, NY, it also has members and activities in Wayne and Pike counties in PA and Orange County, NY.

The green heron is a native bird whose numbers are increasing in the region. It is adaptable and wily and uses tools to catch its prey.

Themes such as green herons, birds, bird watching, landscapes, places, nature, bodies of water, adaptability (for humans and animals), contemplation, conservation and sustainability are welcomed.

These themes can be interpreted loosely and are for inspiration only. We are open to well-crafted poetry in all styles.

The UDWC sponsors events designed to preserve and extend the cultural and literary legacy of the Delaware River and the Upper Delaware River Valley.

For this contest, poets must reside in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

Each poem must be 26 lines or less; prose poems of 250 words or less, one poem per page.
Entry free of $5 per poem; entries limited to four previously unpublished poems. Make
checks payable to UDWC.

Include a cover sheet listing your full contact information, poem titles, and a short bio (50
words or less). Judging will be anonymous. Do not include any contact information on poem submissions.

A panel consisting of UDWC members will judge.
Submission deadline: Friday, May 27th, 2011.
Winners will be notified by July 1st, 2011.
Send SASE for announcement of winners.
Poems may be submitted by first class mail or online. If online, manuscript will be
considered once the entry fee has been received by mail. Word documents only.

First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
Third Prize: $25

Winning poems will be artfully rendered on a poster with the green heron and presented at our annual awards ceremony and celebration in Narrowsburg, New York, September 17th, 2011.

For information and to send submissions via first class mail:

Green Heron Poetry Project
Georganna Millman
PO Box 120
Big Indian, NY 12410

For information and to send submissions online:
GreenHeronPoetryProject@yahoo.com

For more information: 845.252.7506

2011 Writing Contest - TIFERET Journal

TIFERET,  A Journal of Spiritual Literature, offers three awards of $500 in the categories of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

TIFFERET publishes writing from a variety of spiritual and religious traditions with a mission to help reveal spirit through the written word.

The poetry judge is Alicia Ostriker. Josip Novakovich is the non-fiction judge and Gayle Brandeis will be the fiction judge.

Contest Guidelines:
* Unpublished poems in English must be received through our online submissions manager by May 1, 2011 deadline.
* First prize in each genre: $500 and publication in TIFERET.
* Honorable Mention Prizes will receive publication in TIFERET ONLINE.
* $20 fee for each entry. Limit 6 poems (must be submitted in one document), one story or essay up to 25 pages in length.
* To enter, go to: http://tiferet.submishmash.com/Submit     Specify the genre and pay your appropriate entry fee using PayPal.

Winners will be announced June 30, 2011.

The Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest

Is there a story in you that's too long for a poem?

There's still time left to enter The Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest

Submissions must be 1200 words or less. There is no entry fee. Ron Carlson, celebrated author of four novels and five short story collections, will be the final judge.

The Kenyon Review will publish the winning short story in the Winter 2012 issue, and the author will be awarded a scholarship to attend the 2011 Writers Workshop, June 18th-25th, in Gambier, Ohio.

Submission Guidelines
* Writers must be 30 years of age or younger at the time of submission.
* Stories must be no more than 1200 words in length.
* One submission per entrant.
* Please do not simultaneously submit your contest entry to another magazine or contest.
* The submissions link will be active February 1st to February 28th. All work must be submitted through our electronic system. We cannot accept paper submissions.
* Winners will be announced in the late spring. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of any decisions regarding your work.


http://www.kenyonreview.org/krsubmit/shortfictioncontest/

2011 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize

2011 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize

Submit a manuscript of 48-84 pages of original poetry in any style in English. The manuscript must not have been published previously in book form, although individual poems appearing in print or on the web are permitted. Entries may consist of individual poems, a book-length poem, or any combination of long or short poems. Collaborations are welcome.

Submission deadline: April 30, 2011

Alicia Ostriker will judge the 8th Annual Contest. Ostriker has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award, has published 12 volumes of poetry, most recently The Book of Seventy, for which she received the Jewish National Book Award for 2009. Her most recent book of criticism is Dancing at the Devil's Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic. She has received awards and fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the Poetry Society of America, and the San Francisco State Poetry Center, among others. Ostriker lives in Princeton, NJ, is Professor Emerita of English at Rutgers University, and teaches in the low-residency Poetry MFA program of Drew University.

Try A Triolet

We did a triolet prompt back in 1999 on Poets Online using that 8-line form.

Diane Lockward posted recently about a little contest for triolets at Allison Joseph's blog, The Rondeau Roundup. That's a blog that is self-described as being for "the exploration, appreciation and publication of the rondeau, rondel, roundel, rondeau redouble, rondolet, triolet, and ballade."

Want to give it a try? Look at our earlier prompt, Diane's post and Allison's contest.

Want To Buy A Pushcart Prize Nomination?

I came across a blog post at http://htmlgiant.com that details how No Colony ("a collaborative perfect-bound print fiction journal from the editors of NO POSIT & LAMINATION COLONY.") says it will give automatic publication in the magazine and a Pushcart nomination to whomever pays a $650 fee to them. PayPal link included on their site.

It makes you wonder about the nomination process for a Pushcart Prize if this can actually occur.

Which part is legitimate? Internet scam? Poetry scam? All of the above?

Poetry Contest Deadlines

Here are some opportunities to mail that poem, chapbook or full-length collection before the end of the year.

The Hollis Summers Poetry Prize from Ohio University Press and Swallow Press (postmark deadline October 31)

The Ledge Poetry Chapbook Competition (postmark deadline October 31)

Miller Williams Poetry Prize from University of Arkansas Press (postmark deadline October 31)

The T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press (postmark deadline October 31)

Bakeless Literary Prize in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (postmark deadline November 1)

CBC Literary Awards for Canadian citizens and residents (postmark deadline November 1)

Donald Justice Poetry Prize from West Chester University (postmark deadline November 1)

Perugia Press Prize for a first or second book by a woman (postmark deadline November 15)

Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award (postmark deadline November 15)

Yale Series of Younger Poets Award (postmark deadline November 15

Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards (postmark deadline November 16)

Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition (postmark/online entry deadline November 29)

A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize from BOA Editions, Ltd. (postmark deadline November 30)

Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Competition (postmark deadline November 30)

The Motherwell Prize from Fence Books (postmark deadline November 30)

The Plough Prize Poetry Competition (postmark/email deadline November 30)

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize from Waywiser Press (postmark deadline December 1)

Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books (postmark deadline December 1)

The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards

The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College has announced the winners , of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards for 2009 and posted the rules for the 2010 contest.

The contest honors Allen Ginsberg’s contribution to American literature.

Winners will be asked to participate in a reading to take place in the Paterson Historic District.

The Center publishes The Paterson Literary Review, a literary magazine which contains poetry, fiction, reviews, and artwork by individuals with international, national, and regional reputation as well as work by promising new voices. In the past they have published poets such as William Stafford, Ruth Stone, Sonia Sanchez, Laura Boss, Marge Piercy, David Ray, Diane di Prima and Allen Ginsberg.

The Center also compiles the New Jersey Poetry Calendar, a monthly calendar that lists readings taking place in New Jersey.

Readings at the Poetry Center at PCCC

Stanley Kunitz with Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Executive Director of the Poetry Center.

New Jersey Writers Exchange Contest

Poets & Writers is now welcoming submissions for the 2010 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. Initiated in 1984, the Writers Exchange Contest was created to introduce emerging poets and fiction writers to literary communities outside of their home state, and provide them with a network for professional advancement. To date, 78 writers from 31 states have participated.

One poet and one fiction writer from New Jersey will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, where they will meet with agents, editors, and prominent writers, and give a public reading of their work. The winners will be selected by Sophie Cabot Black (poetry) and Nahid Rachlin (fiction).

The contest is open to poets and fiction writers who:

• Have never published a book, or
• Have published no more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying, and
• Have resided in New Jersey for at least two consecutive years prior to the date they submit their manuscripts.
  

An application must accompany all manuscripts and be postmarked no later than December 1, 2009.

For complete guidelines and an application, please visit:
http://www.pw.org/files/WEXApplication09.pdf.

The American Voice in Poetry: the Legacy of Whitman, Williams, and Ginsberg

The Poetry Center at my college, Passaic County Community College, has put out a call for submissions of poems for a contest to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its founding.

The American Voice in Poetry: the Legacy of Whitman, Williams, and Ginsberg is looking for poems rooted in the literary tradition that honors place, voice, and specificity. The contest will produce an anthology of the selected poems.

The winners will be invited to read their poems at a book launch for the anthology of winning poems to be held on Saturday, April 10, 2010 at the Poetry Center in Paterson, NJ.

Contest Rules:

• Two poems per person will be accepted for consideration.
• Two copies of each poem should be submitted with name, address, phone number, and email on one copy of each poem.
  
• Poems should be no more than two manuscript pages.
• Do not submit poems that imitate poems by Whitman, Ginsberg and Williams!
• Only unpublished poems may be submitted to this contest.
• Deadline: November 15, 2009
• Please include SASE for list of winners.
• Winners will be contacted by email or by phone, if email is not available.
• Please do not call our office in reference to the contest.
  

Send poems to:

Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Executive Director
Poetry Center
Passaic County Community College
One College Boulevard
Paterson, New Jersey 07506

The 30-Day Chapbook Diet

"Never a day without a line."
Catullus

This month's writing prompt is borrowed. I read Diane's post on Blogalicious about Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides blog hosting a prompt-a-day (PAD) for November as a way to build a chapbook.

"I'm thinking it might be a neat idea to try writing a poem a day in November with the view of trying to have the makings of a chapbook heading into December. I'll provide a prompt-a-day to try and help get the poetic juices flowing each day, but you can decide to follow or ignore the prompt as you see fit. After all, our main goal would be to have 30ish poems at the end of the month that you can then try turning into a chapbook submission."

He's not giving model poems as we do on Poets Online, but it seems that he will post his own attempts at the prompts at times.

The poem-a-day idea isn't new. William Stafford generally awakened and would write before dawn, and often wrote a poem every day. On the last day of his life, he wrote “Are You Mr. William Stafford?” It must have worked - he more than 60 books during his lifetime.

I also think of David Lehman's collection, The Daily Mirror. Like Stafford, Emily Dickinson, and Frank O'Hara, he began writing a poem a day. It started in 1996 and he continued for the next two years. He selected the best of these "daily poems" and compressed two years into one.

For our November prompt, choose any one of the prompts that Brewer offers this month. When you submit your poem to Ports Online, be sure to include in the email an indication of what the prompt was that you used.





Robert Brewer also throws out this teaser:

At the end of the month, I may be asking you to collect your poems together from this challenge and send me your chapbooks so that I can try to pick a Best Chapbook Award. If I do this, the winner probably won't be announced until Groundhog Day. But I'll give more information on this idea as the month unfolds.

Escape to the Library

I'm passing this information from my colleague and friend, Dana Maloney, who is coordinating this year's NJ Council of Teachers of English 2008 High School Writing Contest. She would like to reach as many teachers and students in New Jersey as possible, so I offered to post about it on several of my blogs.

It's a NJcentric contest, but the rest of you may be curious about the personal essay prompt and our model. It sent me back to a childhood memory that may be one you share.

The contest categories are: poetry, short story, and personal essay. More contest details at the end of this post. The personal essay submissions must respond to this year’s prompt.

Where do you live? Use descriptive language to give the reader a virtual experience of your world. As you do this, let us hear your voice. Share the thoughts, feelings, questions and concerns that arise out of your view of the world around you. Bring your space – your town, your school, your home, your room, your web - to life for your reader. Where you live can be interpreted in many ways, including both literal and metaphorical ways, and we encourage you to take liberty with interpretation.

Of course, you could use that for poetry too. As a model of a personal essay, Dana suggested an essay by another friend, teacher and poet BJ Ward. You might want to read his essay about his youthful home-away-from-home at his local library - it is available online. Escaping to books is probably something that many readers of this post can admit to from their youth.

"During the internet-less, video-game-less, and seemingly endless summers of my childhood, I could ride my bike to the Washington Borough Public Library and within one minute be transported to the world of Dr. Doolittle; The Hardy Boys; and Babe Ruth, All-American Hero. Each book was a planet with a spine. The librarian was an organizing star, keeping all those spheres in their places for future explorers to discover. The library itself was a universe—a macrocosm between paint-chipped walls, below a roof paid for by bake sales, sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and halfway house. It was the most fecund place I knew—a greenhouse for my imagination, where fluorescence had to do with my mind’s branches spreading. O the joyful fire in the astronaut’s skull when divination led to apprehension. "

I was one of those people who had a corner of the children's section of my public library that I considered to be mine. A big, fat, old leather chair in a corner with a dirty window and a wall of books for protection. When they built the new town library - a bigger, brighter, glass-walled
version - I never found a special place there. (The modern chairs discouraged getting comfortable anyway.) Of course, by then I was out of the children's section which almost always is the more inviting part of a library anyway.

I had ventured a few times to the "big library" in my part of New Jersey - the Newark Public Library. It was impressive. Too impressive. I felt lost. Too many echoes in the halls, though I did like seeing in pop up in books like in Phillip Roth's Goodbye Columbus that I was reading. (My own hometown, Irvington, had shown up in some stories and in Portnoy's Complaint and I rode that same bus as

Perhaps, some student will write an essay for the contest about some private place of escape in their world. Do kids still escape to the library? My office is within a college library and it seems to be the place to study and use computers, but escape...?

BJ Ward's poem "Filling in the New Address Book" was featured on National Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac. (listen to Garrison Keillor reading it). His latest collection of poetry is Gravedigger's Birthday. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Warren County Community College in New Jersey.

CONTEST DETAILS

• Each participating teacher may submit up to 10 entries in each category. Submissions must be accompanied by a signed entry form.
• Entrants must submit four paper copies and one electronic copy of each submission.
• Download the entry form which contains information on where to submit the entry.
• The student’s name must not appear on the submission itself – only on the entry form.
• Postmark and Electronic Submission Deadline: December 15, 2008
• At least one student from every participating school will receive an award. Award categories are “Outstanding,” “Prize-worthy” or “Certificate of Merit.” Students in grades 10, 11 or 12 who are named “Outstanding” winners may be eligible for a New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education.
• Winners will be announced by April 15, 2009.

Open Door Poetry

Borders Books has a portion of their website devoted to Open Door Poetry. It's a project to move poetry off the page and into video and audio. The site includes Billy Collins, Paul Muldoon, Kim Addonizio, Donald Hall, Franz Wright, Jorie Graham and others reading their poems and talking about poetry

They also are sponsoring the BORDERS Open-Door Poetry Contest which will be judged by Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate.

The second Borders Open-Door Poetry Contest is open for submissions through July. The top 10 (5 adult, 5 student) poems submitted, in text or in video, will be published on their site alongside a poem by Billy Collins in an upcoming episode. Billy will also read and give feedback on the poems he selects as best. All finalists’ poems will be considered for publication in our annual “Best of” book, which will highlight the many talented poets in the Borders community.

For full information and a submission form, go to bordersmedia.com/odp/