WINNING WRITERS NEWSLETTER
April 2007


Send this page to a friend
We'll donate 15 cents to literacy

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 touched on the 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. Please 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.

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.

SPONSORS' MESSAGES

J-School Assignment: "The Good Old Days"
Adam Regaleus and classmates are directed to the National Journalists Home to seek material for a special series in the school's monthly. Through interviews with elderly news-media retirees, the mode of gathering and processing news in decades past will be spotlighted. Regaleus chooses a subject most of whose career was spent abroad in the early 20th century. Parts of those years the man finds difficult to recall. By itself, an interview may not be accepted for the project. Verification is required for much of the material. And here is where Regaleus finds rough going. His problems are compounded by a misplaced recording, slow-to-respond verification sources and a deferred grade.

www.edalbaugh.com

The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference
Next conference: June 22-25
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 conference is $795 with your timely registration, and includes tuition, pre-conference materials, lodging and meals. The June 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.



On Sale Now: THE HUB OF THE MIRACLE—poetry
Sallie Bingham’s earliest literary expression was found in poetry dictated to her mother who sent the child’s work to her father serving overseas in World War II. During writing classes at Harvard, Bingham was discouraged from becoming a poet, at the time not considered a viable path for a serious writer. After publishing eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, Bingham has finally returned to her first love: poetry, with its pure emotional perspective.

The Hub of the Miracle is divided into sections devoted to “the crises of maturity”: mourning and death, winter, marriage, daily news, even a section that focuses on the stove. Each lyric, however, offers the reader a spark of hope that transcends the ordinary moment.

As a child, Bingham discovered salvation in poetry during dark times. “It has taken me a long while to claim simplicity [in poetry]—which is never simple—as my own,” Bingham says. It is in those moments of profound stillness “that often contain an implicit threat” where Bingham finds the rawness of emotion—the essence of good poetry—and still as an adult her salvation.

Perhaps a few lines from this book may help a sleepless reader through the long dark hours.

Sallie Bingham

Sunstone Press, Softcover: $16.95, 800-243-5644 (orders only)

2007 Creekwalker Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: April 30
Winner receives $250. Submit 5 poems of 25 lines or less on any theme. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. See sample poems at Creekwalker.

Tom Mark Gilbert, founder of Creekwalker, will judge along with one other person to be announced once the results are published. Creekwalker was launched in 1998 as a forum for poets and essayists working with themes centered around nature. Our initial vision encompassed a desire to feature the work of unpublished poets. While we've broadened our scope to include the work of veteran authors, we remain an advocate of the emerging poet and writer. Our interest has expanded, too, beyond strictly nature-themed work to include the full spectrum of human experience.

The entry fee for this contest is $15. See www.creekwalker.com for guidelines or email poetry@creekwalker.com.

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.

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. 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.

Templar Poetry Pamphlet/Chapbook & Collection Competition: 2007
Postmark Deadline: May 5
Three individual winning authors will each receive US$1,000 (or, if they prefer, £500), publication of a quality Chapbook/Pamphlet, 50 free copies, and an option to submit a full collection for later publication, with co-publication of an audio CD (subject to availability of suitable digital audio files from writers outside UK).

The forty or so best runners-up (the "longlisted" poems) will appear in the competition anthology and also receive ten complimentary copies of the anthology. All contestants will receive a complimentary anthology.

Poet Jean Sprackland will judge. Her collection Hard Water (Cape, 2003) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize in the UK. Jean is currently Education Director at The Poetry Archive in London.

Reading Fee: US$32 or £16 may be paid by PayPal or enclosed with your mailed submission. Contestants outside the United Kingdom should use PayPal or send their fee in currency (not as a check or money order). Awards event and launch held in Derbyshire late autumn.

Send your entry via airmail to Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition, P.O. Box 7082, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 9AF, United Kingdom. Full conditions and entry form available from www.templarpoetry.co.uk, or request them by email from info@templarpoetry.co.uk.

Photo of Jean Sprackland by Caroline Forbes.

The City of Derby Short Story and Poetry Competition 2007
Entries must be received by May 31
An annual UK competition based in the historic city of Derby in England invites writers of all ages and nationalities to submit short stories of less than 5,000 words and poems of no more than 40 lines. First prize £350, second prize £250, third prize £150 in each category. This year's short story judge is author Martin Goodman, and the poetry judge is accomplished poet and academic Jane Draycott. Entries should be either submitted online (PayPal and credit cards accepted) or mailed, with a reading fee of £3. See the competition website for further information at www.cityofderbywritingcompetition.org.uk. Postal address: The City of Derby Short Story and Poetry Competition 2007, P.O. Box 7065, Derby DE1 OAD, United Kingdom.



The Litchfield Review First Annual Book Contest
Postmark Deadline: June 1
Judges
Editors of The Litchfield Review
Categories
Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Short Story Collection, Poetry Collection
Entry Fee
$25.00 each book-length manuscript

Submission Guidelines
Open to all writers.
Send one copy of your manuscript to:
The Litchfield Review
7 Bonna Street
Beacon Falls, CT 06403
Manuscripts must be accompanied by a title page with complete contact information. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a business-size self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for contest results. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Awards
Winner in each category will receive a $500 Honorarium, publication by The Litchfield Review with a royalty contract, and ten copies of the published book. Winners will be announced in August 2007. The Litchfield Review reserves the right not to choose a winner in a category in case of insufficient submissions; in that event, reading fees in that category will be returned.

For more information and news about our ongoing writing contests, please check our website www.thelitchfieldreview.com or contact Theresa C. Vara-Dannen.



The Litchfield Review Summer Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 31
We seek poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction for our semi-annual magazine competition. Prose entries should be 3,000 words or less. Poetry entries should be 45 lines or less.

To be considered for just publication in The Litchfield Review (no cash prize), please enclose $5.00 with each essay, short story, or set of 1-3 poems. Enclose $7.00 and you may submit an unlimited number of entries.

To be considered for both publication and a cash prize, please enclose $10.00 with each essay, short story, or set of 1-3 poems. Enclose $15.00 and you may submit an unlimited number of entries.

For complete guidelines, please see The Litchfield Review website.

Lunch Hour Stories 2007 Short Story Contest
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Lunch Hour Stories, a magazine of short fiction, announces its 2007 Short Story Contest. Stories must be previously unpublished, literary or mainstream, 4,000-8,000 words, and formatted in manuscript style. Mild suspense, mystery, fantasy and sci-fi will be considered; children's, religious, romance and erotica will not. Cash prizes, publication, and free copies will be awarded to the 3 top winners, and up to 13 additional stories will be selected for publication during the coming year.

Send one copy, contact information, a short synopsis, a short bio, one $10 reading fee per story, and a letter-sized SASE to: Lunch Hour Stories, Attn: 2007 Short Story Contest, 22833 Bothell-Everett Highway, Suite 110, PMB 1117, Bothell, WA 98021. Please make your fee payable to Lunch Hour Stories. Submit one contest entry at no charge when you subscribe to Lunch Hour Stories.

You may submit as many entries as you like, and you may submit the same works to other contests at the same time as you submit them to Lunch Hour Stories. Winners will be notified by September 30. Complete submission guidelines are available at Lunch Hour Stories.

Thank you and good luck!



Writing It Real Personal Essay Writing Contest
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Sheila Bender's Writing It Real announces the Writing It Real Essay Contest with cash prizes and more. Your $15 entry fee entitles you to a three-month subscription to Writing It Real Magazine, an in-depth online instructional magazine that delivers weekly articles for those who write from personal experience. Read the complete contest guidelines to submit online or by mail, or email info@writingitreal.com for more information.

Another opportunity—join Sheila Bender, Jack Heffron and Susan Rich for the four-day Writing It Real in Port Townsend Writer's Conference, June 21-25. For more details or to register for the conference, email conference@writingitreal.com.



The Virginia Brendemuehl Prize
Postmark Deadline: July 31
$1,000 plus publication will be awarded. Send 1-3 unpublished poems, a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and $10.00 entry fee to Rock & Sling, Attn: Virginia Brendemuehl Prize, P.O. Box 30865, Spokane, WA 99223. Please make your fee payable to Rock & Sling. The contest results will be announced by early September. Finalists will also be published. No simultaneous submissions, please.

Rock & Sling seeks poems that nudge up against Judeo-Christian faith in surprising and memorable ways, grappling with faith’s tensions as well as its joys. Please visit www.rockandsling.org for guidelines, excerpts, editor bios and more.

Rock & Sling congratulates Dorothy North on "Pilgrims", the 2006 winner of the Virginia Brendemuehl Prize. The judge was Robert Cording.




OpenMikeCafe.com and TJMFPublishing.com—A new online community
Announcing two fun contests, with additional monthly online contests for members

Here's Your Chance! Now you too can be a politician—or at least poke fun at them and the political process. In our newest contest, My Fellow Americans, we’re looking for a few good poets. Entry is free—see the complete guidelines. Lots of winners in this one. Top prize is $100 plus three copies of the book produced from the best entries. We want a zany, fun look at American Politics, just in time for the next elections. Enter via email by September 30.

Does your poetry come alive when spoken aloud? TJMF Publishing announces The Calling Card Prize for Audio Poetry. Submit short audio recordings via email by September 3. One prize of $250 and three prizes of $50 will be awarded. Winners will receive online publication of their audio recording and promotional links to their work. Reading fee: $6 per entry. See the complete guidelines. Need help making audio files? Try Voice2Page—you just need a phone.



11th Annual Robert Frost Foundation Annual Poetry Award
Postmark/Email Submission Deadline: September 15
The Robert Frost Foundation welcomes poems in the spirit of Robert Frost for its 11th Annual Award. The winner will receive $1,000 and an invitation to present the winning poem at the Frost Festival located at Lawrence Riverfront Park (off I-93, River Road Exit) in Lawrence, Massachusetts on Saturday, October 27, 2007. Festival readers will include X.J. Kennedy, Rhina Espaillat, Jeffrey Harrison and others.

Please submit two copies of each poem, one copy with contact information and one copy free of all identifying information. Mailing address: Robert Frost Foundation, Lawrence Library - 3rd Floor, 51 Lawrence Street, Lawrence, MA 01841. Email submissions are also accepted at frostfoundation@comcast.net. Reading fees are $10 per poem (send fees via regular mail, please). Read last year's winning poem and this year's guidelines at www.frostfoundation.org. Enjoy this Google video of 2006 winner Rob Smith delivering his poem (4 min 23 sec):

CUTTHROAT Announces 2006 Winners, 2007 Competition
Enter between June 15 and October 15, 2007
Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, congratulates Sue Swartz for "Elegy with Reference to our Conflicting Desires", winner of the 2006 Joy Harjo Poetry Award and Sally Bellerose for "Breaking Vows", winner of the 2006 Rick DeMarinis Short Fiction Award. They received $1,250 each and publication. The judges were Naomi Shihab Nye and Robert Olen Butler.

The reading period for our 2007 contest is June 15-October 15, 2007. Judges are Rebecca Seiferle and John McNally. Send 3 poems (100 lines or less) or one short story (5,000 word limit), a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and a $15 entry fee to Ravens Word Writers, P.O. Box 2414, Durango, CO 81302. For complete guidelines, please see www.cutthroatmag.com.

CUTTHROAT Volume 2, Number 1 features Michael Waters, Andrei Codrescu, Peter Christopher, Richard Jackson, Susan Thomas, Harry Humes, Marc Levy, Summer Wood, Randall Watson, Charlotte Muse, Howard Faerstein, Naomi Shihab Nye and the winners of our 2006 literary awards.

War Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: May 31
Sponsored by Winning Writers. 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 for Traditional Verse
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.


LEARN TO WRITE FOR MAGAZINES!
Want to freelance for magazines but don't know how? Need a little motivation to get started? Learn how to develop ideas, research markets, write your query letter, and make your pitch to editors! In only eight lessons, veteran freelancer Linda Formichelli will show you the ropes. She's written for more than 120 publications, including USA Weekend, Family Circle, Men's Fitness, and Woman's Day. Let Linda show you how you can, too!
http://www.absoluteclasses.com/Formicelli/writing_for_magazines.htm


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.


Office Depot - April Coupon
Save on paper, toner, binders and all your writing supplies at Office Depot. Free delivery in select areas when you order $50 or more.
Save $30 on any $150 Purchase from Office Depot in April! Offer valid through 05.07.07.

It didn’t matter whether you believed in these things or not. They were an excitement, a wave, a tremor.

          —Don DeLillo, White Noise

JENDI'S CRITIQUE CORNER

This month, Critique Corner is pleased to present "Bruno Was From Brazil: A Prose Poem" by Judy Juanita.

If you would like a chance to be critiqued, please email your poem to me at critique@winningwriters.com. Send the poem in the body of your email message (no attachments) and put "poetry critique" in the subject line. One submission per poet per month. Thanks!


Bruno Was From Brazil: A Prose Poem
by Judy Juanita

"I'm from Oakland and I'm not a statistic. Yet. But New Year's Eve I left the Bank of America at 2:30 pm; the news that night flashed on my bank. It was the scene of the last homicide of the year, at 3:20 pm.—, which meant I dodged a bullet by 45 minutes. Witnesses say two Latino males and two African-American males had a parking lot altercation. The Latino driver used an ethnic slur and one of the black guys pulled out a gun and shot him. The two blacks drove off, witnesses say, and Bruno who was from Brazil and delivered pizza, for god's sake, died on the spot...now you know the last word in the guidebook for new arrivals is nigger. Ask Camille Cosby. And I know poor, poor Bruno heard the word a thousand times delivering those pizzas. 'Some nigguz on 90th Ave. want mushroom/salami/chicken...only nigguz want combos like that...you my nigga...when you get money from nigguz, check for counterfeit...nigguz, Bruno, watch out...' Poor Bruno, the word probably came off his tongue like spit. And he didn't know you could call a black person a nigger and get utter scorn and contempt. Like down South where they just ignored it and kept their inner dignity. But Bruno, you don't call a real nigga a nigga. That's like a death wish. Are you crazy? Suicidal? Certain words are like gods. They command respect. Nigger is a god. I'm so sorry for Bruno. He was a sacrificial lamb—that's what you have to do with gods. You have to appease them, give them a lil' somepin somepin. And I know Richard Pryor went to Africa after he made $50 million off the word and came back with religion. Stopped using the word and used crack instead. But he didn't stop folks from using it. He just made the word an academic issue: shall we nigger; shall we not nigger? Forget Dick Gregory's autobiography called Nigger. No, a Harvard law professor writes a book called Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Nigger is a God, nigger made millions, now it has a career. And the country's leading black intellectual, a guy named Skippy, finds one of the first novels written by a black, titled, what else, Our Nig. So I'm proposing a constitutional amendment on the use of the word. There are simply days when it is dangerous to use the word. And one of those days is Friday night. And another of those days is Saturday night. Ok? On MLK's birthday, abstain. Christmas, it goes without saying. The season is the reason. And proceed with caution on the Fourth of July. Fireworks, drinking and the use of the word by the wrong people don't mix."


Copyright 2007 by Judy Juanita


Critique by Jendi Reiter

This month's unusual and provocative piece, "Bruno Was From Brazil" by Judy Juanita, crosses the boundaries of genre (appropriately for a poem about explosive cross-cultural interaction). An example of the fluid form known as the prose poem, which has become increasingly popular in literary journals, this piece would also work well as a slam poetry performance. Neither form can rely on line breaks to signify that the text is "poetic", forcing the author to pay closer attention to aural patterns and timing in order to give the piece the musical momentum and intensity of a poem. Writing prose poems, or reading one's work aloud, are both useful tools for free-verse poets to discover whether they are allowing line breaks to substitute for true poetic speech.

What exactly is a prose poem? This overview from the Academy of American Poets website notes: "While it lacks the line breaks associated with poetry, the prose poem maintains a poetic quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression, repetition, and rhyme." Juanita's poem fits this description, with its staccato sentences, its wide-ranging associative leaps between topics and varieties of diction (news reports, conversation, academese and slang), and especially its mesmerizing repetition of That Word.

"Bruno Was From Brazil" initially leans toward the prosy side of the equation, beginning in the voice of a hard-boiled detective story: "I'm from Oakland and I'm not a statistic. Yet." Halfway through, somewhere around the line "Certain words are like gods," the piece takes off as a manic riff on racially charged language and whether its sting can ever be dulled by context. Without line breaks (brakes?), the words spill out furiously, defying decorum and step-by-step logic, so that when we finally reach the author's satirical "solution" of a constitutional amendment, it's obvious that we'll never be able to draw neat lines separating safe from dangerous uses of the word...

critique continues here

This poem, our critique and contest suggestions for poems in this style appear in full at:
http://www.winningwriters.com/resources/critiques/2007/urc_0704juanita.php

See all of our poetry critiques.