Thank you!

PWB sends out our thanks to John Marshall and Christine Deavel for running an all poetry bookstore in Seattle (one of only two in the US.) Thanks for keeping poetry alive with your store Open Books: A Poem Emporium.

Click here to read an article about this bookstore.

Submission Call Out

Editor Paula Cole Jones seeks poems by published and unpublished authors on "identity and transformation as it relates to race and ethnicity" for an anthology. She is the founder of ADORE which stands for A Dialogue on Race & Ethnicity.

You can submit up to 10 poems for consideration by Sept. 10th. Include your phone number, address and a brief bio if you go submit. Send all entries to ContactAdore@aol.com

Decant

Our office building has glass

walls that reflect everything and

become invisible. We stand outside,

.

the lowest things in the mirror. Here’s

the slightly distorted self and the

anonymous parade of traffic. Cloud’s

hair slides across its silver

face. A falcon wings beside itself.

The windows throw

.

light. Our pupils clench. Entrenched

inside, people make decisions. We

bob and sink in their wake like

capsized boats always losing the

horizon. Inside, amber files

preserve carefree accusations, births,

names of the untouchables,

.

conversations. Inside, elevators rise and

fall, chasing each other through a

fog of electronic memoranda. Here’s a

hydroponic garden of cubicles. Here’s

the open office plan, rooms where

orders are issued. Here they type

our papers, our blood, our brains,

our tissue.

.

The building claims to be ours but

we belong to it. It’s alive in the

swing of a walk, the weight of a

voice, a quivering taste bud. It

lives in water, the wild, the wed,

the dying and between the fevers of

the passionate.

.

We’re timber cut for lumber or

saved for cultivation. The building

shouts our names with sirens. We

twist and look every time. We become

.

reflections. We find the line. We sign.

It reaches into us like poured wine

reaches the bottom of the glass.

By Nathan from Exhaust Fumes and French Fries.

This is a jigsaw poem. Want to play along? Leave me a comment and send your information to poetswhobog@yahoo.com with something about poetry in the subject line.

Robert Lee Brewer from Poetic Asides, the Writer's Digest Poetry column, names some of the top poetry sites online. You can find out what made his list by clicking here.

Look for Emmy nominated poet Jon Goode on CNN's new series Black in America. You can read more about Jon Goode in

the wings were twisted
delicate and fine as

your silver hair


locked in amber
carefree

untouched by time’s passing



will you decant this for me

chase the meaning of the words

shout the words aloud


oh taste the ambered wonder

feel the trembling timber of trapped wings

while we drink of time’s sweet honey



By Pamela Olson from Amputated Moon.

This is a jigsaw poem. Another will be posted tommorow. If you want to take part in our challenge, send me your poem at poetswhoblog@yahoo.com or leave me a link to it in the comments.

Poetry on Your Car? Wanna Play Along?

Several bloggers over at Automotivetry are placing poetry on their cars, as blogged about by Lizerati in a post titled The Terror of Poetry.

Think you might like to join in their fun?

Read instuctions on how by clicking here.

Youth Poetry Contest

Anyone 17 or younger may submit a poem to the 3rd Annual Alexander Popoff Youth Award Poetry Contest. Poems must relate to human rights.

To submit send one poem to stazja at yahoo.com

Make sure your subject line is “Youth Award entry”
Include your name telephone number, address, school, age, and grade. Please seek permission from your parent or gaurdian before sending that information.

The poem that wins the contest will be read at the annual Universal Declaration of Human Rights event in December 2008. There is also a 100 dollar prize.

Visit Youth for Human Rights to watch videos that explain the 30 articles of human rights. Base your poem on one of those articles.

Heavy summer air plays tag
with thin cool ocean breezes
They chase carefree through tree tops
carrying shouts of beachgoers
who are just out of site.

I inhale the scene
savoring it like the scent of a lover's hair
I taste the sea salt
spiced with the timber planks
layed before me in a twisted path

which decants me from woods to sand
while wings of evening
wrap around it all
turning the sky amber
and making a moment a dream


By Jenn from Drawings in the Sand.

This is a Jigsaw Poem, using words donated by other members of PWB. You can take part by looking at the instructions in the post below.

Thank you, Jenn, for taking part.

Ready to Play?

These are the words for the Jigsaw Poem Challenge:

twist
shout
wings
hair
amber
carefree
timber
decant
chase
taste

You can add ed, ing, ly, s etc to these words.

Use all ten words to make a poem and then send the poem to

poetswhoblog@yahoo.com

with your screenname, and a link to your blog. Please put something about poetry in the subject line.

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor does a daily podcast where he talks about this day in history and reads a poem. You can find his show by going to this page and clicking Listen.

Congrats to Shawntay A. Henry!

PWB sends out congratulations out to Shawntay A. Henry, of the U.S. Virgin Islands, winner of the 2008 Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest!

To learn more about Poetry Out Loud click here.

Add a line Poem

Add the next line in the comments. I will end by adding the last line at the point I deem it to be done.


Fast and furious, I chase



First line by Sara from The Shores of My Dreams.

Listen to selected poems from Steel and Stone - an anthology of poems celebrating the bridges of the world at Poetica by
clicking here.


Poems by Helen Keller,Joyce Carol Oates, F. Scott Fitzgerald, DH Lawrence, and many more poets.

Youth Contest

Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild is now accepting poems for their contest. Poets who submit must be between 10 and 18 years old.

There is no fee to entry.

You can submit up to 3 poems per entry or 150 lines, or stories and essays up to 1,500 words. Each entry should include a title and name, address and age (as of June 15), name of school, home phone, and email on a separate cover sheet, along with genre and number of words or lines.

All entries must be typed in 12-point font, original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere.

First place winners in each category will be published in Delaware Beach Life. Other submissions may be published in local newspapers.

Postmark deadline: August 15.

Mail entries to: Rehoboth Beach Writer's Guild, Young Writers Contest, PO Box 1326, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971.

Click here for more details.