Thank you, 2011 Spring Poetry Runoff participants!

I’d just like to say again how, in both quantity and quality, this year’s Spring Poetry Runoff exceeded my hopes. I’m deeply grateful for everyone’s participation and consider hosting such an outpouring of spring passion a high honor.   Seeing writers come together to play and ply their craft has been inspiring, and my hopes for Mormon nature writing received quite the lift.   Fine work, people, and €”for me, at least €”some of the best fun around.   Slow-release wonder and other good effects of the Runoff linger still.

So many, many glad thanks to:

Sandra Skouson

greenfrog

Karen Kelsay

Mary Belardi Erickson

Sarah Dunster

Carla Martin-Wood (poems and photos both)

Sean Watson

Judith Curtis

Steve Peck

Barry Carter

Jonathon Penny

Saul Karamesines (photos)

Tyler Chadwick

Ángel Chaparro Sainz

Harlow Clark

Tod Robbins

David Passey

Nathan Meidell

A great group, and we’ll have to think of something really cool to do with such a glittering array of verse.

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Victorian Violet Press seeks poetry

Victorian Violet Press editor Karen Kelsay, a frequent contributor to WIZ, sent this announcement:

Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine, is seeking submissions for the December issue. Please check out the magazine to get an idea of what type of poetry is published. You can find the magazine here.

Guidelines: Our taste in poetry is eclectic, but these subjects are preferred: inspirational, poetry for children, poetry about children, nature and life. Formal and free verse are both accepted, we particularly enjoy metrical poems that have lyricism, originality, accessibility and beauty.

Poems should not be obscure or overly abstract and should have a strong element of rhythm and a strong metrical element whether they are free verse or formalist.

Send 3-5 poems pasted in the body of an email with your name in the subject line. Simultaneous submissions and previously published poems are okay. Please wait three months after your last submission, before sending more poetry.

WIZ’s 2010 Spring Poetry Runoff Contest

A compass needle, a lizard, spins half a turn
To keep me in sight, tweaking my sense of direction:
Spring is coming €” that way.

According to my 2010 turtle calendar, the Vernal Equinox arrives Saturday, March 20.   To celebrate spring’s arrival last year, WIZ ran a Spring Poetry Run-off that turned out to be lots of fun.   So beginning March 19, we’re running WIZ’s Second Annual Spring Poetry Run-off, this time as a poetry contest!

In keeping with WIZ’s mission to help develop, inspire, and promote literary nature and science writing in the Mormon writing community, we encourage poets to help call an end to winter and midwife the birth of a milder season, a season of gardens, returning flocks, and light that takes the tarnish off the blood.

Contest rules

• Submit poems to wilderness@motleyvision.org between March 7 and March 31.
• All poems submitted must be original, published or unpublished work.   If the work has been previously published, please provide publication information and be sure you can grant us rights to re-publish the work.
• Please submit poems 50 lines long or less.
• All poems submitted must be spring-themed or at least mention spring.
• Poets may submit up to 3 poems.

The contest will run from March 19 through March 31 or longer, if enough poems come in to warrant extending the contest. All submissions will be published on the blog, where they’ll become automatically eligible for competition as well as open to readers’ informal feedback in the post’s comments. Authors retain all rights to their work.

Entries will be posted one per day until all entries have been posted.   Following the contest’s closing, readers will vote on WIZ to choose the winning poem.

A winner will be announced within a week after the last poem has been posted and all votes have been cast.   The winner will be awarded his or her choice of either a copy of Lance Larsen’s Backyard Alchemy (University of Tampa Press 2009) or Warren Hatch’s Mapping the Bones of the World (Signature Books 2007).

If you don’t want to compete but would like to participate in the Spring Poetry Runoff, let me know and I’ll mark the poem, €œNot for competition. €

So, if you have written a poem which mentions spring or one in which spring figures prominently and that fits WIZ’s themes and content, e-mail it to us at wilderness@motleyvision.org.   Please review our submissions guide before submitting.

Guest Post: Girl and Mare by Cara O’Sullivan

Swallows fly low and fast
Singing of nests in the arena’s rafters.
Heat radiates through wood and sand
Melodius with the voices of young girls,
Odorous with warm sweat of horses,
Pungent with fresh manure,  
Sweet from hay growing in the field.
The mare and the girl work hard
Learning to dance together,
To understand a tug of the rein,
The lean of a body, the weight of a foot.
Dust rises where they turn, jump, and lope
This creature comprised of two–
My daughter, barely eighty pounds,
And the chestnut mare over a thousand.
My daughter’s face is flushed with heat and concentration;
The mare is sleek with sweat, but she hates to stop.
She is one with the girl who loves to run.
They both yearn to move through space
Soaring over hurdles. Maybe this is what makes
Them love each other so. When the lesson ends
The mare stands, eyes half closed as the girl
Brushes over tired muscles, soothes out tangled mane and tail.
The horse nudges her face against the girl.
Unbidden, she plods quietly behind the girl,
Content to follow her back to the corral.
Neither seems to want to leave the other.
Out in the paddock, maple trees shiver
In a cool wind easing down the canyon.
The mare comes close to stand by the girl,
Nudges her again. My daughter wraps her arms
Around the mare’s neck, buries her face
In that solid living warmth. The trees lean
Into   the radiance of that quiet embrace.
I call to my girl, have the sense to let the two
Linger in that fast embrace.
I understand that love, that loathing to part.
My girl finally comes to me. In the sun,
The chestnut mare watches, her brown eyes
Warm as heated summer earth.

____________________________________________________________

Cara Bullinger O’Sullivan is a BYU English department graduate who has worked as a magazine editor, technical writer, and IT systems auditor. She lives in Utah with her husband, two children and 2 dogs. In her spare time she enjoys pursuing various creative writing projects with unknown destinations.