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Award-Winning Poems: Spring 2007
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Welcome to our Spring 2007 selection of award-winning poems. These quarterly specials are included with your free Winning Writers Newsletter subscription. We'll release our next regular newsletter on March 15.
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RECENT HONORS FOR OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Ann Cefola. She won a 2007 Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency from the Santa Fe Art Institute. Her translation of work by experimental French poet Helene Sanguinetti, Hence this cradle, will be published this month by Seismicity Editions. In addition, her chapbook, Sugaring, will be published this month by Dancing Girl Press. Ms. Cefola kindly shares a poem from this collection below.
RECENT HONORS FOR POETRY CONTEST INSIDER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Cheryl Loetscher. In August 2006, her poem "The Persistence of Hunger" won an honorable mention and $250 in the inaugural Natchez Poetry Contest, sponsored by Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Mississippi. The most recent deadline for this $1,000 prize for unpublished poems was July 31. Ms. Loetscher kindly shares her winning poem below.
FEATURED SPONSOR'S MESSAGE
Artists Embassy International Poetry Contest - 43 Cash Awards
To further understanding and goodwill through the universal language of the arts
Postmark Deadline: May 15
Artists Embassy International’s annual Poetry Contest has moved its deadline one month earlier. This year's postmark deadline is May 15, 2007. Contest entry forms are provided on our website at www.dancingpoetry.org.
All 43 Poetry Contest winners will be honored at the 14th Annual Dancing Poetry Festival. The authors of all prizewinning poems for this year will be invited to read at our prestigious podium in the elegant California Palace of the Legion of Honor Art Museum on Saturday, September 29, 2007. Forty-three poems will be chosen to receive a cumulative total of over $1,000 and free entry into our festival, plus a printed award certificate. The top three poems chosen as Grand Prizes will also be choreographed, costumed and videotaped live in an on-stage performance at the Festival.
 Read the 2006 Grand Prize Poems and see pictures from their performance at www.dancingpoetry.com. Recent topics of winning poems have ranged from travels of Matisse, a Picasso painting, falling leaves, love, Iraq, China, history, dance, current events, reverie, socially significant situations and even some humor sprinkled here and there. Don't feel constrained to write a poem about dancing.
Winning this contest will expose your work to an audience eager to experience the rich varieties of today's poetry. They appreciate poetry from different countries, eras and historical perspectives. The entry fee is $5 per poem or $10 for 3 poems. Each poem may be up to 40 lines long. Send two copies of each poem. One copy should be anonymous (just title and poem), the other should have your name, address, phone, email address and where you heard about this contest (e.g. Winning Writers Newsletter).
When the judges evaluate entries, they look for innovative perspectives on ordinary or unusual subjects as well as excellence of craft. Your entry should be suitable for a general audience since our following is comprised of people of all ages and ethnicities. English translations must be included with non-English poems.
Our judges consist of poets, dancers, musicians and visual artists of various media, all members of Artists Embassy International. Judging is done with the anonymous copies of the poems. Artists Embassy International is a non-profit, volunteer, arts and education organization whose goal is to further intercultural understanding through the arts. With the Dancing Poetry Contest and Festival, we are providing a forum for poetry, and for dance and poetry, in an elegant setting.
 Favorite poems will be presented by many visiting dance companies in ways that delight the audience. Stimulating new ideas and countless intriguing responses in new poetic works are reported each year by the poets, creators, visitors and artists who participate in this inspirational event. Three poets, the Grand Prize winners, will be rewarded with seeing their poems danced by Natica Angilly’s Poetic Dance Theater Company, a well-known dance troupe that has performed around the world and throughout America. This company is dedicated exclusively to creating new avenues by combining poetry, dance and music together for presentation and the expansion of poetry with dance in the life of our culture.
Music, costumes, color and grandeur mark each Dancing Poetry Festival as an event not to miss. It is not often that you will get a chance to read your poem and hear the poems of other winning poets in such a worthy setting. In addition, the afternoon will include at least ten additional dance solos and troupes dancing to poetry from around the world.
To enter or to receive additional information, please write to our Dancing Poetry Chair, Judy Cheung, 704 Brigham Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95404, or email her at jhcheung@comcast.net.
Closing This Month
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest
Postmark Deadline: March 31
Now in its 15th year. Prizes of $1,200, $800 and $400 will be awarded, plus four High Distinction awards of $200 each. Submit any type of short story, essay or other work of prose, up to 5,000 words. You may submit work that has been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. $12 entry fee. Submit online or by mail. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
Closing Next Month
Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest - No Fee
Online Submission Deadline: April 1
Winning Writers invites you to enter the sixth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. The prize pool has doubled to $3,336.40 in cash, with a top prize of $1,359. There is no fee to enter. Submit online. Judge: Jendi Reiter. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
War Poetry Contest - $5,000 in Cash Prizes
Postmark Deadline: May 31
We seek 1-3 original, unpublished poems for our sixth annual contest on the theme of war, up to 500 lines in total. We will award $5,000, up from $3,000 in the previous contest. The top prize is $2,000. Your entry fee of $15 includes three months of online access to Poetry Contest Insider, a $6.95 value. Submit online or by mail. Judge: Jendi Reiter. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
Margaret Reid Poetry Contest - $4,500 in Cash Prizes
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Now in its fourth year, this contest seeks poetry in traditional verse forms such as sonnets and haiku. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. 50 cash prizes totaling $4,500 will be awarded, including a top prize of $1,000. The entry fee is $6 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: September 30
Now in its fifth year, this contest seeks poems in any style, theme or genre. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. 30 cash prizes totaling $3,500 will be awarded, including a top prize of $1,000. The entry fee is $6 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
TRY POETRY CONTEST INSIDER
Get profiles for over 750 poetry contests, plus over 100 of the best prose contests. Search and sort contests by deadline, prize, fee, recommendation level and more. Out of hundreds of contests, there might only be two or three dozen that are especially appropriate for your work. We help you find them fast. Interviews and links to award-winning work help you refine your craft. Explore Poetry Contest Insider for 10 days on us. If you like it, you'll pay just $6.95/quarter. If it's not for you, cancel and pay nothing. Learn more about Poetry Contest Insider.
Winning Writers was just profiled in an interview for Kay Day's online Poetry Beat column in The Writer (2/20/07):
Want first hand, detailed information about entering writing contests? The site Winning Writers is an increasingly popular resource.
Visitors may opt for a free registration to receive the e-newsletter, access to The Best Free Poetry Contests database, and a chance to submit poems for critique in the e-newsletter. A modest fee of $6.95 for three months adds The Poetry Contest Insider database, in-depth editorial content like interviews with contest judges and links to poems that have won prizes, and guidelines for contests that charge fees.
The site also includes information about prose contests...
[Adam] Cohen: One of the major objectives of our contest database is to help give authors the information they need to decide which contests are right for them. To sift through 750+ contests can seem daunting. We try to make this process as speedy, painless and effective as possible through our search mechanism, our detailed contest profiles, our contest rankings and our links to the work of winners and judges. Besides helping authors pick contests, we also hope that our presenting a large array of prize-winning work—a feast of great contemporary writing—will be enjoyable and instructive in itself.
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AROUND THE BLOCK OF THE WORLD and THE SAMOVAR
by Veronica Patterson
Co-winner of the 2006 Campbell Corner Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: March 15
This award from Sarah Lawrence College offers $3,000 and a public reading at Poets House for poems that "treat larger themes with lyric intensity". Previously published work accepted. These evocative poems show the interpenetration of past and present, living and dead, as the speaker finds unexpected joy in a conversation with her dying mother or re-experiences the history of her family while contemplating a samovar.
DEAR BLACKBIRD 1
by Jane Springer
Winner of the 2006 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry
Postmark Deadline: March 31
Competitive open manuscript contest includes $1,000 and publication by the University of Utah Press. This title poem from Springer's prizewinning collection is a haunting letter to the blackbird who has flown away, from the scarecrow who remains in an autumn landscape that is giving way to winter's death. "When the crows descended, I welcomed them."
ON YOUR BRILLIANT ESCAPE
by John Gallaher
Winner of the 2005 Four Way Books Levis Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: March 31
Prestigious manuscript prize, offered in odd-numbered years only, is open to US authors with prior book publication. This enigmatic poem from Gallaher's prizewinning The Little Book of Guesses puts the reader in the position of a godlike voyeur, viewing romance and metamorphosis "in the city of the made-up city," where nothing stays the right size for long.
We are gathering a growing library of award-winning poems in Poetry Contest Insider, over 50 to date. Enjoy a wide range of today's best work. Sign up for a free trial.
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 2003 WAR POETRY CONTEST—FIRST PRIZE
FLOATING GIRL (ANGEL OF WAR)
by Robert Randolph
"...doubling up in pain like a river
with these white flowers...."
Jose Louis Hidalgo
Floating face down,
She is part of the river's script of bodies,
Its holy marginalia.
Her head floats inside her own hair
Her body drifts in moonlight, in privacy beyond
rain: the hour has lost its shoreline.
You want to kiss her, but your lips are glass; your
handkerchief has turned to white glass.
A prayer wheel is turning. You want to give her palomino ponies with golden hooves.
She cannot wait, floating downstream.
Already her sky fills part of the western horizon.
Her upper back breaks the surface.
You can hear the bell of silence near her skin.
*
She is not alone.
Some die in a silence that rises up from their feet,
Like a bitter, dumb angel. Finally, there is nothing left of them to hear.
No one knows the location of every child's body, inventing their small books to give
to God.
The bones of these children are made of silence.
They saw darkness fly into the mirror.
The shadows, already folded, fold again.
Children's bodies lie in the rain, badly dressed night-birds, and only their names
get up.
The bones of murdered babies drift so far, no gloves can lift them.
Nothing puts out their light. They burn like plants, in the distance, like harps.
*
The light is dim against your windows. There is nothing to say.
The towel lies where you left it on the stand, and you look at its texture; it seems a
small
white world.
You cover your eyes with your hands. This is enormous dignity.
You pray for children awake in shadows.
Of course you pray, because a child's love is the cleanest river that flows through
the human body;
You can see all its stones. The floating girl's face drifts toward the sea.
She wraps silence around herself like a scarf.
Her body rolls over and lifts its dead hand toward the moon.
A small piece of wind blows around you and closes behind you. That was her life.
Now you stand inside the oval of her death.
Your heart enters a drifting room of tulips.
Copyright 2003 Robert Randolph
This poem won First Prize in the 2003 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. We highly recommend Mr. Randolph's full-length collection, Floating Girl (Angel of War), which received second prize in the 2005 Elixir Poetry Book Awards from Elixir Press.
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SPONSORS' MESSAGES
 Lucidity Poetry Journal
Lucidity Poetry Journal, entering its 22nd year of publication, is seeking poems dealing with all the facets of human experience such as life, love, loss, joy, sorrow, hope, disappointment—all those elements faced by people in human relationships and events. We publish poems that are lucid and clear in diction and deal with everyday issues, avoiding vulgarities and jabberwocky. We also avoid political and religious verse, as well as purely nature poems: such as butterflies, sunsets, birds, etc. We are open to any format: formal or free verse but it is important to read our guidelines before submitting poetry. We do not consider email submissions.
If your work is accepted for publication, you will receive modest payment (from $1 to $15), plus a free copy of that issue. We do charge a small entry/reading fee to pay the publication and postage expenses of our journal. Please email us for submission details or visit our website: lucidityjournal.00books.com (the 00 are zeros). In addition to our twice-yearly journal, we also publish chapbooks for poets at a reasonable cost if you wish to have your poems in a book. A new concept has been developed we call a Mini-Chapbook, featuring 8 of your poems with an attractive cover. These are great for mailing or giveaways, and are cheaper than a greeting card. Send $1 for a sample of the Mini-Chapbook.
In April 2007 we shall sponsor the 15th annual Lucidity Ozark Poetry Retreat at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This 3-day event features lectures, critiquing groups, read-arounds and fellowship with poets from across the country. Registration fee for all 3 days is only $35. For details, please contact us: Lucidity Poetry Journal, Ted Badger–Editor, 14781 Memorial Drive, No. 10, Houston, TX 77079-5210, USA, or email tedbadger1@yahoo.com.
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Ron N. Cervero's Cranial Speedway is Now On Sale at Xlibris.com
Ron Cervero's Barbaric Yawp
In a long tradition of "outside" poets, from Whitman's "barbaric yawp" through Bukowski, comes Ron Cervero, who has crafted a volume of short rough poems which primarily are written as responses to daily occurrences, or, more often, outrages. The outrage is keenly felt, and Mr. Cervero's responses are often bitter and sardonic.
"Cervero claims not to have read Bukowski before writing this volume and while comparisons, especially eternally being at odds with the Establishment, are evident, these poems are as fragmentary and episodic as, say, videotaping a hanging surreptitiously with a cell phone. Still, they add to define the personality of the poet, whose tattooed legs and torso are displayed on the cover and whose unique view becomes more clear with each poem." —Professor David Mix, Northeast Review
King
by Ron Cervero
Cannibals gather
For the feast of knowledge
Devouring themselves
In games of fire & instinct.
In desperation,
Lost kings search for the King
Anointed in love.
Shepard's forked tongues
Breed wounded warriors.
Share me not in the
Bounty of bitter roots,
And darkened dreams.
Cleanse me in Lion's blood.
SET ME FREE...
Copyright 2006 Ron Cervero
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The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
Next conference: May 4-7
The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference provides the faculty, connections, and method necessary to set poets with a completed manuscript or manuscript-in-process on a path towards publication. Includes workshops, consultations with press editors, evening poetry readings, editorial panel Q&A, group critique of selected poems, and an after-conference strategy session.
Faculty for 2007 include editors and publishers Martha Rhodes (Four Way Books), Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press), Jeffrey Shotts (Graywolf Press), Michael Simms (Autumn House Press) and others; workshop leaders include Director of the Concord Poetry Center, Joan Houlihan, Suffolk University Creative Writing Program Director Frederick Marchant, Director of the Smith Poetry Center, Ellen Dore Watson, and Chair of the Writing and Publishing Department at Emerson College in Boston, Daniel Tobin.
The cost of the May conference is $795, and includes tuition, pre-conference materials, lodging and meals. The May conference takes place in Colrain, a country town in Western Massachusetts, at the unique and magical Round House. For an application and complete guidelines, please visit concordpoetry.org/Colrain. You may also call 978-897-0054, email cpc@concordpoetry.org or write to Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, Concord Poetry Center, 40 Stow Street, Concord, MA 01742-2418.
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Last Call!
13th Annual Robert Frost Poetry Festival and Contests
Contest Postmark Deadline: March 20
The 13th Annual Robert Frost Poetry Festival will be held April 11–15, 2007. The Festival, set in the Heritage House Garden, Robert Frost Cottage, and at other select tropical venues in Key West, again will feature poetry and haiku workshops, poetry and haiku readings, an art, poetry, and film event, poetry on the water, and international Poetry and Haiku Contests. Featured poets are Dr. Michael Wyndham Thomas, Birmingham, England, Barry George, Charles Trumbull, Editor of Modern Haiku, and Key West novelist and poet Rosalind Brackenbury. For event details, Festival registration, and Contest details, please visit robertfrostpoetryfestival.com, heritagehousemuseum.org or write to The RFPF, 410 Caroline Street, Key West, FL 33040.
Here are the contest rules:
I. Robert Frost Poetry Festival Poetry Contest: $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $50 Third Prize and two Honorable Mentions. $10 entry fee. Previously unpublished, open to style and theme, 30 lines maximum. Two typed copies of each poem, with your name, address, phone and/or email on one copy only.
II. Robert Frost Poetry Festival Haiku Contest: $75 First Prize, $50 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize, and Honorable Mentions. $10 entry fee for up to three haiku per person; 3-line format of up to 17 or fewer syllables. All haiku must contain a seasonal or nature image. Two copies of each poem typed or neatly written, with your name, address, phone and/or email on one copy only. Charles Trumbull, Editor of Modern Haiku, will judge.
A chapbook of winning poems from 1999-2005 is available for $5.00, including shipping and handling. Mail entries and orders to Robert Frost Poetry & Haiku Contests, Heritage House Museum, 410 Caroline Street, Key West, FL 33040. Make checks payable to RFPF. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) if you would like to be notified of the results. Please note that entries will not be returned.
Copyright is retained by the authors with the following condition: Heritage House Press retains one-time rights to publish winning or selected contest entries in RFPF announcements or in an anthology of winning RFPF Contest poems. Since rights revert to the authors, a poem may be reprinted as long as appropriate acknowledgement is made to the RFPF Contest. For further information or updates, please visit robertfrostpoetryfestival.com
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Closing Next Month
Annual Milton Dorfman Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: April 30
The Milton Dorfman Poetry Prize is sponsored by Rome Art & Community Center of Rome, New York. FIRST PRIZE $300, SECOND $150, THIRD $100, plus honorable mentions. Entries accepted from all over the US and the world. Judge to be announced. Entries must be original poetry, unpublished at time of submission. Guidelines must be followed or entry will be void. Entries must be typed on 8.5" x 11" paper. Author's name, address, and telephone number must appear on the BACK of each entry. Entry fee of $10 per poem, US funds. Checks or money orders accepted. Entries may also be submitted via email with a credit card payment over the phone—call 315-336-1040 for more info.
Contest open to the general public, excluding RACC employees. Winners will be notified by telephone. Winning entries will be published and read during the annual awards ceremony at RACC. More info can be found at www.romeart.org. Make your entry fees payable to Rome Art & Community Center and mail your entries to: Rome Art & Community Center, c/o Dorfman Poetry Prize, 308 West Bloomfield Street, Rome, NY 13440.
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Closing Next Month
Don't Miss the 3rd Annual Skysaje Enterprises Poetry Contest
Entries must be received by April 30
Our third annual poetry contest closes next month! Don't miss your chance at the guaranteed $100 grand prize! All styles accepted! Both published and unpublished work welcome. Submit up to 5 poems per entry. Multiple entries accepted! Please include a $5 reading fee with each entry. Someone will win—why not you? Last year's winner was Arthur "Old Gold" Aoereste of Rochester, New York. Please enjoy his poem:
Addiction
by Arthur Aoereste
There you are calling to me
from across the room
seductive in your see through garment
your body soft long and golden.
you are calling to me
like the sirens of the sea
"come, enjoy all that awaits you."
But I am strong. I can wait a little longer.
Or can i?
Suddenly the animal within me is released and I find myself ripping away the thin clothes feeling your soft warmth in my hands, then in my mouth.
In my mind
I see you slowly pushing your rich white cream sweet and thick onto my tongue where i hold it as long as i can then slowly let it slide down my throat.
There's no room in my life for any other.
together we are like the sand and the sea the stars and the sky!
I love you Twinky(tm)
together we will live together we will die!
Copyright 2006 Arthur Aoereste
Enter this year's contest now!
Make your entry fee payable to L. Berger and mail to:
Skysaje Enterprises
50 Amesbury Road
Rochester, NY 14623-5314
Don't wait. Your entry must be received by April 30 to be eligible to win.
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At the Library
by Ann Cefola
Two Canada geese, neck and beak elegant question marks, eyes wary and black,
webbed feet slapping concrete, ask if they should approach. I say
Look at the people revolving through these doors.
We believe soft vellum pages can give us altitude.
At seven years old, I was Sleeping Beauty
in a play called Books Have Wings.
I awoke from sleep with
library card in hand,
entranced
by
the mechanical
yellow sponge clamping over it.
Four decades I’ve come here for clarity
and truth, and what strikes me most is the undulating V
you form against a twilight-clouded evening, the orchestrated
honking that keeps you one. Some might say Use your head. I say
Use your wings. And you do, when I—aspiring to flight—leave with
more wingless spines. For this I drop all my books, stare open-mouthed at the sky.
Copyright 2007 by Ann Cefola
This poem appears in Ms. Cefola's forthcoming chapbook Sugaring from Dancing Girl Press.
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The Persistence of Hunger
by Cheryl Loetscher
You came to your senses in the company
of nature when even in the maddest years
your garden flourished.
Tilling your plot in a slip of pasture
fenced in stone and #16 tying wire
you wore hope, honest and translucent,
like tea steeped loose in barely boiled water.
Pressing palm to forehead
you listened for the unexpected silence of roots
and scree, of heat collecting in the forest.
With an instinct toward ritual, you tallied
your tithes of fruit and herbs on notched sticks
which threatened to come apart
at the grooves.
What the earth wanted,
you knew the earth would have.
Those were the days when you placed your shoes
outside the door, some for loyalty,
others for desire, all lined up like rockweed
marking the tide’s retreat.
Copyright 2007 by Cheryl Loetscher
This poem won an honorable mention in the 2006 Natchez Poetry Contest from Copiah-Lincoln Community College.
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2007 Poet's Market
The 2007 edition of Poet's Market is on sale at Amazon. Published each August by Writer's Digest, this is the best annual guide to 1,800 journals, magazines, book publishers, chapbook publishers, websites, grants, conferences, workshops and contests. Helps you find publishers who are looking for your kind of work. Also updated are Novel & Short
Story Writer's Market and Writer's Market for works of prose. Writer's Market is "the most valuable of tools for the writer new to the marketplace," says
Stephen King in On Writing.
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readings, or sell from your website. Specify the kind of book you want to print and get an instant price quote. Customers say, "the published book is exactly what I had envisioned. And the cost was so reasonable, I'd recommend InstantPublisher.com to anyone." "I experimented with several different short-run and POD printers during my 90-day adventure from self-published to major book deal, and I have to say that the quality of your books was BY FAR the best. When sending press kits to the media, and anyone we wanted to impress, we'd always send your books, which we affectionately referred to as 'The GOOD books.' "
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Advertise to 16,000 Poets and Writers
Promote your contests, websites, events and publications in this newsletter. Reach over 16,000 poets and writers for $50. Ads may contain up to 150 words, a headline and a graphic image. Make your reservation here:
http://www.winningwriters.com/advertisers.php
"Whatever success we have with this first-year contest, we will be giving winningwriters.com a lion's share of the credit. We thank you for your personal attention to our account, and for just being there."
Peter Buttross, Natchez Poetry Contest
"Advertising with Winning Writers produced immediate, extraordinary results! Our first ad, as well as our published interview with Jendi Reiter, linked us with fine writers across the world, a connection that continues to enrich our issues, annual contest, and readership."
Susan Cowger, Editor, Rock & Sling
"The ads we have run in the Winning Writers newsletter
have garnered more response and inquiry than any other
ads we have run in 20 years of publication."
Ted O. Badger, Editor, Lucidity Poetry Journal
"I'm very pleased with the variety of responses we've received, and I very much appreciate the
care you took in adding links and generally improving the copy I sent you."
Mark Schorr, Executive Director, The Robert Frost Foundation
"Thanks so much for looking out for Perigee: for working on our behalf. You have my personal gratitude for going the extra mile, and for putting the product before the profit. With customer service and marketing savvy like yours, Winning Writers is sure to continue to go far. And you can quote me ;-)"
Robert Woerheide, Editor in Chief, Perigee
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
A Newspaper for New Readers
News for You is a weekly newspaper written in plain English. It's published by New Readers Press, the publishing division of ProLiteracy Worldwide. Teachers can take advantage of special classroom rates, and a free teaching supplement each week includes photocopy-ready exercises.
Readers say:
We Are Learning
I just want to let you know how much I have learned while being at the Danville Center for Adolescent Females. Your newspapers are so helpful today in our world because young teenagers are learning stuff instead of being out there on the street doing drugs or something. We are learning more about other countries. So thank you.
Kit Z.
Danville, Pennsylvania
Controlling Anger
The article “Cooling Off Time Can Help People Lessen Anger” was a helpful article for people who show anger toward their friends for any reason. I agree with the idea about how to control a person’s anger. You are absolutely right: learning how to control anger is an important thing for all people. Anger can affect people’s health or hurt people’s feelings. When people get angry, they may do something or say something bad to their friends. After these angry actions, they sometimes feel better temporarily, but they may regret what they have said or done to their friends. Therefore, people should try to wait a while before taking any action. I am very interested in what you publish. It has influenced me to read more. So would you publish more articles similar to this article? I look forward to reading others in News for You in the future.
Mabel Yick
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Story May Help To Encourage Youth
I read your article in News for You on track and field competitions. I have a granddaughter who has just started running track. Reading the article on Gale Devers will help me to encourage her to go on. This is something that she really wants to do. She is only 12 years old now. I hope this will help her to accomplish her goal.
Joyce Nicholson
Pensacola Junior College
Pensacola, Florida
Send this page to a friend and we'll donate 15 cents to ProLiteracy for each friend you refer.
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 2006 WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST—HONORABLE MENTION
SOLITUDE
by Magenta St Germain
Hark! I am all alone
like the lone seagull that flies
over the sea of lonely solitude. No one understands me
and ye do not care
especially ye two, who
said I couldn't spend any more time on MySpace
you know who you are.
IMHO, thy dost not comprehend how hard my life is
you birthed me and then stuckest me out into the world
like Tara Reid's boob.
Probably I am adopted
which hast been kept from me as a secret
like the mystery of a gentle ocean breeze
or a sunset which paints the sky with colours
or why Courtney from home room started hating on me
even though I have been totally nice to her
when she didn't deserve it,
some of you know what I'm talking about LOL.
Like the majestic and proud seagull I soar.
Hark, I see the face of a young god
who walks the halls and has a nice bod
in the cafeteria today the special is cod.
Todd! Why dost ye not see me?
Perhaps my bird spirit has frightened ye
so you do not see the beautiful raptor soaring high
but rather something that craps on your car.
Not that I have actually done that
because it is a metaphor.
I flap! My wings are as white and pure as un-used maxi-pads
my beak is beaky and hard
as I swoop to steal a piece of mouldy bread from a duck
my talons are like claws of love that long to enfold you
except they are not talons because I am a seagull.
Apart from my friends, I am completely alone. Abandoned,
companionless, deserted, desolate, forlorn, forsaken,
hermit, individual, isolated, lone, lonely, lonesome, only,
single, sole, solitary, solo, stag, traveling light,
unattached, unattended, unescorted.
Copyright 2006 Magenta St Germain
Sent as a joke to Poetry.com, this poem won an Honorable Mention in the 2006 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers.
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COMING IN OUR MARCH 15 NEWSLETTER
Best Free Poetry Contests for March 16-April 30
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