Poetry News from HARRIET the Poetry Blog

National Book Awards Longlist for Poetry Announced

By Harriet Staff


Today, the New Yorker takes a look at the longlist in the poetry category for the National Book Awards. The list is a mix of established poets and emerging poets, with Donika Kelly and Solmaz Sharif’s first books appearing in 2016. Now for that list:

Daniel Borzutzky, The Performance of Becoming Human (Brooklyn Arts Press)
Rita Dove, Collected Poems 1974 – 2004 (W. W. Norton & Company)
Peter Gizzi, Archeophonics (Wesleyan University Press)
Donald Hall, The Selected Poems of Donald Hall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Jay Hopler, The Abridged History of Rainfall (McSweeney’s)
Donika Kelly, Bestiary (Graywolf Press)
Jane Mead, World of Made and Unmade (Alice James Books)
Solmaz Sharif, Look (Graywolf Press)
Monica Youn, Blackacre (Graywolf Press)
Kevin Young, Blue Laws (Alfred A. Knopf)

POETRY COMPETITIONS

Ron Pretty Poetry Prize    Submissions for the 2016 Ron Pretty Poetry Prize are now open! First Prize: $5000 Second Prize: $1500 Third Prize: $750 The prize will be awarded to a single poem of up to 30 lines, and is open to anyone over the age of 18 years, including overseas applicants. Entry fee is $25 for the first poem and $10 for subsequent poems. There are no limits on entries. Online submissions only. Judge: Ron Pretty Opening Date: 15 July 2016 Closing Date: 22 November 2016 The long list will now be announced on 21 January 2017 The short list will be announced on 31 January 2017 The prize winner will be announced at an event on 3 March 2017 Enquiries should be directed to: submissions@fiveislandspress.com. Read more: http://fiveislandspress.com/ron-pretty-poetry-prize

 

Sonnet Writing Competition now open!

This year is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, and like other Shakespeare lovers worldwide, the Shakespeare Club of Western Australia plans a celebration of the bard's life.

 

We are going to commemorate with a sonnet-writing competition for adults and secondary school students, open to would-be writers and experienced poets alike.

 Adult Category: The Competition is open to any Australian Resident (excepting members of the Shakespeare Club of WA): 1^st Prize: $300; 2^nd Prize: $200; 3^rd Prize: $100
Entrants will be invited to attend the Awards Ceremony in Perth.

Competition Rules

1.   Sonnet entries must be accompanied by an Entry Form and must be submitted by post to Shakespeare Club of WA, PO Box 100, Mt Hawthorn, WA 6915. 
2.    In the Student Category there is an entry fee of $5 per sonnet entry. In the Adult Category the entry fee is $10 per sonnet entry. Payment may be made by cheque, Money Order or by Bank Transfer. Entries received without payment will be excluded from the Competition. Entry fees are not refundable.
3.    Entrants may submit more than one but no more than three sonnet entries. Each entry must be on a separate sheet of paper and must not include any information that might identify the entrant.
 4.    Deadline: All entries must be received by September 23, 2016. r Entries received after that date will not be accepted.
5.    The identity of entrants will not be known by the Panel of Judges. The decision of the Panel of Judges will be final. The n the Prizes are awarded.
6.   The Composition Guidelines form part of the Competition Rules. By entering the Competition, entrants agree to the Competition Rules.
7.   The Shakespeare Club of Western Australia reserves the right to publish any entry. Winners will be announced online at: www.perthshakespeareclub.blogspot.com.au.Prizewinners agree to allow their names to be published; at the Awards Ceremony photographs may be taken for publication.

 

 

Australian S/Story Festival - in Northbridge, WA

CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKETS The three-day festival will offer over twenty-five paid and free events, showcasing not only the traditional written form but also storytelling in the oral and recorded forms.  A total of thirty local and national writers, will be participating in the event, along with Parashar Kulkarni, who recently became the first Indian writer to win the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story, ‘Cow and Company.' Key events include, 'In Conversation' sessions with prominent writers such as Ryan O’Neill (VIC), Ellen van Neerven (QLD), Cate Kennedy (VIC), Paddy O’Reilly (VIC), Fiona McFarlane (NSW) and Isabelle Li (NSW), publishing advice with three independent publishing houses, the launch of Westerly: New Creative issue, a collaboration between local storytellers and raconteurs - Barefaced Stories, Magnolias Late Night Live and Ships In The Night, a celebration of five years of the Margaret River Short Story Competition and a street reading walk of Northbridge. Host organisation, Centre for Stories in Northbridge will be the Festival's main venue, with activities also scheduled at the State Library and Northbridge Piazza which will showcase an Indigenous Yarning Session, featuring prominent personalities from Warakurna, a remote community of Western Australia situated 330km from Uluru. Cate Kennedy, one of Australia’s most celebrated short story writers, will give the opening address. Professor Kim Scott, twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award will deliver the closing address. Australian Short Story Festival Patron highly acclaimed author, Gail Jones, has described the event as “an audacious, intelligent and very welcome initiative at a time when the short story as a form is enormously popular with both emerging and established writers”. The Australian Short Festival has received funding from the Department of Culture and Arts, Copyright Agency and the City of Perth.

Issa Haiku

she keeps the nest
nice and neat...
widow bird

Issa 1821

.小奇麗にしてくらす也やもめ鳥
kogirei [ni] shite kurasu nari yamome tori


Though Issa is known for humor in haiku, this one tugs at the heart strings ... hard.

http://haikuguy.com/

Leunig larf

Sonnet Competition now open

From the Shakespeare Club of Western Australia:

SONNET COMPETITION

 

This year is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, and like other Shakespeare lovers worldwide, the Shakespeare Club of Western Australia plans a celebration of the bard's life.

 

We are going to commemorate with a sonnet-writing competition for adults and secondary school students, open to would-be writers and experienced poets alike.

 

Competition Rules: Click here! 

 

Adult Entry Form:  Click here!

 

Student Entry Form: Click here!

Sonnet competition again

Our sonnet competition has received some very good entries - but not enough of them! While we are delighted with the standard of the entries, we do hope more people can be encouraged to send in their sonnets.

Originally, we barred members of the Club from entering, but entry numbers to date suggest that perhaps most of the people who write sonnets are already members of The Shakespeare Club of Western Australia! Therefore, the Committee has decided to open the competition to members of the Club. Members are advised that they must not enter under their own names, but use a nom-de-plume, so that the judging can take place on a level playing field.

So come on, members! Pay homage to our beloved bard by putting pen to paper. Or, rather, fingers to keyboard!

From the Captain of the Modern Poetics course (FREE)

My profuse apologies. I promise to be a better proofreader! The problem with open enrollment has NOW been fixed.—Al Dear andrew burke: For a day or so, those who tried to enroll in ModPo a few days after the start of the course were told that enrollments were closed. This was an error in the system. It's now been fixed. ModPo is always open! Anyone can enroll in ModPo any time. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Share ModPo with loved ones, colleagues, neighbors! Give them this URL: https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo Al

Go to course

A small poem in Honour of Merv Lilley's passing at 96

IN MEMORY OF MERV

Merv’s riding down

for his cremation. He wouldn’t

miss it for all the sugar cane

in Queensland. All the family

will be there and people

he only half recognises. Will

the undertaker ladies have

a hitching rail and safe storage

for his saddle-bags? They’re new,

you know. They were on

Merv’s last shopping list: 'I need

pack saddle with a couple of splitbags –

also a .22 rifle to shoot whatever...'

All the cane fires of Queensland

couldn’t burn Merv’s rage out

but now all his energy goes

up in smoke in one last blaze.

Don’t call the wallopers or

the fireys. Merv’s just going out

in one last blaze of glory.