4th Annual Poetry Contest

It is that time of year again. I find it hard to believe that this is the 4th year that I’ve had a writ­ing con­test. The first three years were haiku con­tests, this year I’m broad­en­ing it in form and being a bit more spe­cif­ic in regard to con­tent. I hope you like the prize. April is Nation­al Poet­ry Month and my hum­ble con­test lasts the thir­ty days. Details past the jump.

Require­ments:

Don Eulert’s book Field: A Haiku Cir­cle presents an admirable require­ment for this lit­tle con­test of mine; name­ly:

…haiku should sim­ply arise out of a gen­uine­ly felt moment, and…“be the start­ing-points for trains of thoughts and emo­tions.” … A short poem like haiku needs jux­ta­po­si­tion. A haiku that might become a “start­ing-place for trains of thought and emo­tion” begins with a non-didac­tic Zen atten­tion. Then maybe a cou­ple of things come into aware­ness simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, with a lit­tle sur­prise. … More a way of being in the world than a way of writ­ing, haiku sup­pos­ed­ly see with­out ego. … But Robert Haas notes that even Basho takes us into “the deep­er mys­ter­ies” through what Haas calls “the scent of a par­tic­u­lar human life.”

But as I’ve already said, this is a bit broad­er than a haiku con­test. Any kind of poet­ry is accept­able, but what I’d like you to do is to strive to teach with­out teach­ing, show with­out telling and be with­out being self-con­scious. The poem does­n’t have to be those things, but I’d appre­ci­ate it if you tried writ­ing in that sort of mind­set. If you reread this you might real­ize that there aren’t real­ly any require­ments. Don’t wor­ry about your writ­ing skill. Each poem is an equal­ly won­der­ful gift in my eyes.

Sub­mis­sion:

Poems should be e‑mailed to poems@organicmechanic.org no lat­er than April 30th. Any­thing received in May isn’t eli­gi­ble to win a prize.

Rules and Dis­claimer:

1. Don’t pla­gia­rize. I’ll find out. I’m good like that.
2. I will post your poem here, you will still retain the copy­right to your work, I’m just repro­duc­ing it for every­one’s enjoy­ment.
3. I’m the sole judge. Ooh, Scary.
4. I’m not mak­ing any mon­ey off this con­test, or your poet­ry.
5. Any­thing else I for­got goes here.

Prizes:

Four folks will get prizes. Only the grand prize is excep­tion­al. The rest are sort of lame.

Mega-Jum­bo-Super-Hap­py-Joy-Sauer­kraut Grand Prize:

• A copy of Don Eulert’s Field: A Haiku Cir­cle. Only 1,000 copies were print­ed, so this is a rare treat and quite hard to get ahold of.

• A per­son­al­ized mix CD.

ROFLMAO-Indi­go-Kiel­basa-Opi­um-Heav­en­ly-Three-Peo­ple-Tied-For-First-Run­ner-Up First Run­ners Up Prize:

• A per­son­al­ized mix CD.

Any ques­tions? Shoot me an email.