Patricia Barnes of Wyandotte, Michigan is the winner of the Chancelor’s Prize in the Poetry Society of Michigan’s annual poetry contest.
Window / Patricia Barnes
Category: Uncategorized
Rust Belt / Randy K. Schwartz
Winner of the Margo LaGattuta Memorial Award in the Poetry Society of Michigan’s annual poetry contest is Randy K. Schwartz of Ann Arbor, Michigan. This poem and all of the other contest winners are featured in the latest edition of Peninsula Poets.
Prompt: Write a Haibun
Try a haibun.Haibun (俳文, literally, haikai writings) is a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku. The range of haibun is broad and frequently includes autobiography, diary, essay, prose poem, short story and travel journal. Usually the prose is in the present tense, not longer than 180 words, and the entire thing ends with a haiku I’m trying my bunkhouse piece in this format. You can find lots of info online about them. The Haibun Hut is a Facebook group where Haibun can be posted by anyone. The masters of the Haibun were Issa and Bashō. Here is one from Bashō (translation by Franz Wright):
As the freezing rain of early winter began falling desolately over everything, I sought warmth and company at a roadside inn. Allowed to dry my soaked clothes at the fire, I was further comforted for a time by the innkeeper who tactfully listened to me relate some of the troubles I met with on the road. Suddenly it was evening. I sat down under a lamp, taking great care with them as I produced my ink and brushes, and began to write. Recognizing my work, he solemnly requested that I consider composing a poem in honor of our one brief encounter in this world:
At an inn I am asked for identification
traveler let that be my name
the first winter rain
Prompt: Place or Building
From Crossroads: Creative Writing Exercises in Four Genres by Diane Thiel. (textbook, 2005) Choose a place or a building that has evocative memories for you. Let your piece stay focused on the place as a “container” for memories.(I’m going to write about a bunkhouse. First line: Skunks lived under it.)
Prompt: A Contemporary Sonnet
Have you written a sonnet lately? Now is a good time. Yes, there is the rhyme scheme but you can squeeze that a little bit. You don’t want to have your lines end at the breaks. That will result in Dr. Seussishness. Enjamb, let the lines flow into the next. The rhyme should be really subtle in this old rhymed form. Write the Black Lives Matter poem. Did Ovid write about Covid? He would’ve. (He didn’t write sonnets either but so…as I used to say as a teenager.) Make it contemporary. No flowery handkerchief language.
Fall Song / Ryan Ann Felt
Prompt: Poetry of Place
Write a poem using a real place in your life in an important way. PS Make it really good!! (From Writing Poetry by Barbara Drake) The real good part is mine EK
Hey Good Lookin’ / Mary Merlo
From the Spring issue of Peninsula Poets.
Prompt: A Family History Poem
From Writing Poetry by Barbara Drake: Write a poem that teaches the history of your family to those who come after you.
Prompt: Color
From The Practice of Poetry. Write a poem in which the name of a color is frequently repeated throughout the course of the poem. Consider symbolic associations (blue=sadness) as well as personal associations. (green=the phosphorescent algae on our little lake). Get the color into the title of the poem.
