Bezos’ Wedding in Italy: What to Know


is that my catalpa tree
is engorged with lightly
scented white flowers,
branches bowed down
and offering this bridal bouquet to me.

No gondolas on these rain
flooded streets, only twigs
and leaves gliding down to
the manhole covers,
dancing in circles until
they disappear below.

Roberta Brown is the winner of the 2025 Margo LaGattuta Memorial Award in PSM’s annual poetry contest.

Manningham Trust Poetry Contest

Get the Word Out to Students:

The National Federation of State Poetry Societies sponsors a student poetry contest—ten monetary prizes will be awarded in each division—Grades 6-8 and Grades 9-12. The deadline is NOVEMBER 15 and there is no entry fee! Please spread the word to students and teachers; see the website below for more detailed information. Thanks for your help in promoting poetry!

https://nfsps.net/manningham-student-poetry-contest

Remember Poets Meet Musicians

On Friday, October 3rd, the day before our PSM Conference, the “Poets Meet Musicians” event will take place at MiddleCoast Brewing Co., located at 329 E. State St. in Traverse City. The time is 8:30 p.m. arrival for a 9:00 reading. Bring a short poem to read or just come and enjoy a beverage, some food, and some music and poetry! What could be better than that? Hope to see you there.
 https://www.middlecoastbrewingco.com/

a day without fear / David James

Some of the poems in A Day without Fear are months old while a few were written over forty years ago. Altogether this is an eclectic collection of poems ranging from the very imaginative to the pastoral to the hard poems about mortality and what happens after death, if anything. In this chaotic and harrowing world, it’s hard to live a day without fear, but we have to try.  As far as we know, this is the only life we’re going to get.



Born and raised on the third coast, Michigan, David James has published eight books and has had more than thirty of his one-act plays produced in the United States, Ireland, and England. After working for forty-five years in higher education, he retired in 2022.

Poets Meet Musicians – Venue Change

POETS MEET MUSICIANS”:

CHANGE OF VENUE

On Friday, October 3rd, the day before our PSM Conference, the “Poets Meet Musicians” event will be held at MiddleCoast Brewing Co. at 329 E. State St. in Traverse City instead of at NOBO. The time is the same: 8:30 p.m. arrival and a 9:00 reading. Bring a short poem to read or just come and enjoy a beverage, some food and some music and poetry! What could be better than that? Hope to see you there.
 https://www.middlecoastbrewingco.com/

Workshop Leaders for the Fall Conference

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF OUR WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Fleda Brown was born in Columbia, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She earned her Ph.D. in English (specialty in American Literature) from the University of Arkansas, and in 1978 she joined the faculty of the University of Delaware English Department, where she founded the Poets in the Schools Program, which she directed for more than 12 years. Her books, essays, and individual poems have won many awards. Her tenth collection of poems, The Woods Are On Fire: New and Selected Poems, was chosen by Ted Kooser for his Contemporary Poetry Series from the University of Nebraska Press in 2017. Her collection of memoir-essays, Driving With Dvorak, was published in 2010 by the University of Nebraska Press. Her memoir with Sydney Lea, Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets: Two Lives, came out in 2018 from Green Mountain Press. She has co-edited two books, most recently On the Mason-Dixon Line: An Anthology of Contemporary Delaware Writers. She served as poet laureate of Delaware from 2001-2007, when she retired from the University of Delaware and moved to Traverse City, Michigan.

Born and raised in northern Michigan, Terry Wooten had his imagination sparked by nature, trains, ghost towns and folklore. He attended Western Michigan University, working toward a degree in Education, writing poetry on the side. In 1980 he met poet Max Ellison who taught him the magic of the oral tradition and has been performing his poetry and the work of over 100 other writers as a bard ever since. So far, Wooten has published sixteen books.

PSM Winners in the 2025 NFSPS Annual Contest

Patricia Barnes of Wyandotte MI, PSM Honorary Chancellor:
HM2, Winners Circle Award
HM3, Poetry Society of Indiana Award
HM5, The Robbie Award

Deb Belcher of Tustin MI:
HM4, The Barbara Sykes Memorial Award

Dr. Emory D. Jones of Iuka MS:
HM6, William Stafford Memorial Award
HM3, The Robbie Award

Cynthia Nankee of Canton MI:
3rd Place, Jim Barton, Bard of the Pines Award
HM7, Jim Barton Memorial Award
1st Place, Alabama State Poetry Award
HM2, James C. Saunders Memorial Award
HM3, Wallace Stevens Memorial Award
2nd Place, Mississippi Poetry Society Award
1st Place, Barbara Stevens Memorial Award

Polly Opsahl of Oscoda MI:
3rd Place, Poetry Society of Indiana Award
1st Place, Poetry Society of Oklahoma A