Newsletter of the Poetry Society of Virginia
November 2004
A Common Wealth of Poetry

In This Issue:

From the President
Members news
Publishing and Contest Opportunities
Members Poetry
Central Region Meeting

From the President
Ed Lull

The Eastern Region meeting in Virginia Beach on September 18 got the �Poetry Year� off to a great start with an excellent program that drew 58 attendees. The open reading introduced us to numerous non-member poets, all of whom received invitations to join PSV. The featured presenter, Sofia Starnes, took us through the exciting journey from original idea to completed poem. Congratulations to Virginia O�Keefe and her team of Bob Young, Doris Baker, Sunday Abbott, and Betty Maistelman.

Regarding the book sale of the four PSV anthologies, now is the time to complete your set. They would make welcome Christmas gifts. We are planning to do some recruiting in the spring in areas where our membership does not reflect the poet population. As part of that effort, we shall be donating anthologies to libraries and schools until the supply runs out. They have been in boxes long enough.

Our Annual Contest Committee has prepared an excellent contest again this year. The addition of the new Members� Prize is especially noteworthy with its $500 in prize money offered. The Adult Contest features 25 categories and over $2,500 in prizes. A big thank you to our generous contest sponsors. Don�t lose that pink brochure that accompanied the last newsletter. Enter anytime from now until January 19, 2005.

The contest brochure for the Annual Student Contest has also just been published. Our adult PSV members should spread the word on this contest to students through whatever means are available. There are a couple of added categories in this contest this year. The deadline for submissions is January 19, like the Adult Contest.
The flyers for the Book Sale and the Annual Adult and Student Contests can be found on our web site: www.poetrysocietyofvirginia.org

David Partie hosted a well-attended Western Region meeting in Lynchburg on October 16. His featured speaker, Ron Rash, kept his audience rapt with his powerful poetry. He also shared some of his writing processes and responded effectively in a Q & A segment. The open reading, as usual, brought forth some very creative and entertaining work from members and guests.

I hope to see many of you in Richmond in November.

Members� News

Peter Desmond and Paula Savoy (aka Cath McCormack) read their poetry at the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, N.H., on October 3. It was a full barn. They've been invited back to do their performance poetry next Fall.

Peter will also read new work in Acton, Mass., in November, the day before Paula has a reception for her exhibit of art photography in Cambridge, Mass. They invite you to visit their new web site: www.peterandpaula.us .

The Playwrights Premiere Theatre will include one of Pat Royal Perkinson's poems in its upcoming production at Williamsburg's Kimball Theatre, Virginia Creations, Life on the Chesapeake. Entitled "Understanding," the poem theorizes a conversation between a new home built at river's edge and the river itself. Inspired by a Pen Woman's painting and written a year before Hurricane Isabel's visit to the Chesapeake, the poem then seemed somewhat prescient.

Barbara Drucker Smith�s book A Poetic Journey is available from:
Louraine Publishing,
Att: Barbara Drucker Smith,
120 Selden Road,
Newport News, VA 23606.
Purchase price is $20, which includes delivery and a personalized autograph if requested. Please make checks out to Louraine Publishing and include the name or names the buyer wishes the autograph to be written out to. Barbara can be reached at any time on her voice mail 757-599-6229 or by her email:
barbaradsmith@cox.net.

Mary Lederman, Connie Tupper and Linda and Stuart Nottingham read to a small but appreciative audience on Oct. 7 at the Celebration of the Arts Festival in Charlottesville. On Oct 14 Elizabeth Solomon and Sarah and Dan Goetz read to a larger group as the Celebration continued.

Publishing and Contest Opportunities
Cath McCormick provided us with information about the All Nations Press Chapbook Contest www.allnationspress.com. Deadline: December 31, 2004. THREE WINNERS
1st prize: $1,000 and publication. 2nd Prize: Publication. 3rd Prize: featured poet in the literary journal, White Marsh Review.
Guidelines: No more than 35 pages. 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Two title pages, one without name. Everyone is eligible. $20 entry made to All Nations Press. If submitting more than one chapbook--1st entry is $20, all after that mailed in same envelope are $15 each. Manuscripts will not be returned. Include SASE for announcement of winner. All entries will receive a copy of Winning Chapbook. Please notify ANP if chapbook is placed elsewhere. Mail all entries to: All Nations Press, Chapbook Contest, PO Box 689, White Marsh, VA 23183
Tupelo Press has a new office in Charlottesville, Virginia. �Tupelo Press has fattened the purse for its 2004 Dorset Prize to $10,000. Sending the message that poetry really matters, Tupelo Press has made the Dorset Prize the most lucrative award in the nation for a previously unpublished book of poetry.� Deadline December 1, 2004. More information can be found on their web site www.tupelopressva.org
2005 INTERNATIONAL HAIKU CONTEST Sponsored by the Palomar Branch, National League of American Pen Women. All proceeds generated from this contest provide a scholarship for a deserving student entering college. Adjudication: Yvonne M. Hardenbrook. Contest is open to the public. Prizes: $100, $50, $25. Honorable Mentions. Winners will be notified by mail and their poems published in a chapbook. All rights revert to authors after publication. Deadline: March 1, 2005.

Haiku must be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. Any style of haiku is acceptable; syllable count can be less than 17.
Submit two copies of each haiku, typed or printed in English, on a 3� x 5� (75mm x 125mm) card or similar sized paper. On ONE copy, print name, address, phone number and email. One haiku per card, but any number of haiku may be entered.
Entry fee: Two haiku for $5.00. Checks or money orders (US funds only) payable to NLAPW.
For list of winners, send a business-sized SASE or a SAE with an IRC. (See note below)
Mail to: NLAPW Contest, 12063 Lomica Drive, San Diego, CA 92128, USA.
Questions: email Contest Coordinator, Faith Berlin: wordhog1@juno.com

Sheila Barksdale let us know that the editor of the Scotland-based magazine, Quantum Leap, wishes to remind all that when submitting to foreign countries do not use U.S. postage on the SASE. Instead, go to the Post Office and get an International Reply Coupon (IRC).

Members� Poetry

pOetry

As the pen's
Intuitiveness
Leaves a print
I gladly yield
To its intrusion

Michal Mahgerefteh
Published in Something to Think About magazine, 2004

Metaphor

I explored
metaphor.

I was the sea
with a skin of ragged waves,
and I was betrayed
by deep hidden currents
I could neither know
nor control.

I was a lonely mountain
in its fastness
with a skin of stone.
I thought long slow thoughts
through the millennia
and tried to atone for the violence
of my birth while feeling the fires
die within me and my passions fade.

I was the wind
with no skin, no boundaries
and no place to hide a thought
if I found one.
I could not even begin to begin
but I was free.

I became the smile of Death
in the end, stretched thin
to offer welcome and cold peace.
I remember your face
just before you accepted
your own final release.

William B. Spillman Jr
Second prize at the National 2004 Poetry Contest of the Roanoke Valley Chapter of American Pen Women

SUNFLOWER

My upturned face followed your radiance
Across the brilliant arc of your days,
Then rested on the shoulder of our nights,
Only to rise and follow you again in the morn.

I passed the fertile summer of my life that way
Until all my strength was spent tending the seed
Your warmth produced.
Then when I turned too brittle-dry to imitate
The endless repetitions of your rise,
You took your radiance to another quadrant
And warmed a crop of supple, green neophytes,
Who blossomed bright and beautiful
Worshiping under your gaze,
While I broke and decayed
In the icy storms of my winter.

Ruth King
Published in Paint brush VI, II

North Wind, Livingston Parish

Spies on the long distance wires.
Why are we apart?
What dark gusts have blown
Me east to Hammond,
You west to Baton Rouge?
And why does it now turn
To the direction of treacherous trolls,
Arctic freeze and winter blindness,
Keeping you from my exile�s anguish,
Me from your joys,
With fifty miles of lonely pines between,
Filling up the empty shadows?
The choc-birds won�t budge,
Clinging to our every word,
Pondering your question:
Dad, when will you come home?

James F. Gaines
This poem appeared in The Louisiana Review, Vol 3, 2001

Rules for submitting member poetry.
1. The Poem must be previously published.
2. The poet must retain rights to the poem (and will retain rights after we publish it).
3. Poems to be published will be selected by lot.
4. Send only one poem to the Newsletter Editor.

Correction
In the October Newsletter, the 12th line of Patsy Anne Bickerstaff�s poem, Autumn Yard, should have read, �under the sweet gum.� And on the 1st page, I fumbled our hard working Treasurer�s name also. It is Guy Terrell. My apologies

Meeting Dates 2004-2005
� Eastern September 18
� Western October 16
� Central November 20
� Northern March 12
� Contest April 16
� PSV Festival May 20-22

Poetry Society of Virginia
Executive Committee � 2004-2005

Officers
President: Edward Lull, President@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Vice President, Central: Shann Palmer, shannp@sprynet.com
Vice President, Eastern: Virginia O�Keefe
Vice President, Northern: Claudia Gary Annis
Vice President, Western: David Partie, djpartie@liberty.edu
Treasurer: Guy Terrell, ggterr@infionline.net
Membership Chair: Stuart Nottingham, membership@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Contest Chair: Norma Richardson, contest@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Parliamentarian: Xennia Long
Historian: Warren Harris, historian@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Newsletter Editor: Linda Bailey Nottingham, newsletter@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Webmaster: Linda Bailey Nottingham, admin@poetrysocietyofvirginia.org
Recording Secretary: Joyce Gunter Grabsch

Executive Directors
Joseph Awad
James McNally
Lorraine Smith
Patsy Anne Bickerstaff
Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
Beth Huddleston

Advisory Board
George Garrett
Ron Smith
Margaret Ward Morland

The Poetry Society of Virginia
Central Regional Meeting
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA

9:30- 10:00 A.M. Registration:
10:00-12:00 noon Open Mike Readings
12;00- 1:00 pm Catered Lunch
1:00- 2:30 Brief Business Meeting followed by
"Centerpiece" a one-woman poetry and prose performance by Ellen Steinbaum

Ellen Steinbaum is a poet from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in Midstream, the Christian Science Monitor, Kalliope, and Negative Capability, and other journals. She has appeared on cable television, and on "Here and Now" on National Public Radio. Her first collection of poems, Afterwords, was published in 2001 by Blue Unicorn Press. Afterwords deals with loss and the journey through bereavement. Ellen also writes a literary column for the Boston Globe's City Weekly Section. She performed her show at ARTSPACE last spring.

For more links and information go to http://groups.msn.com/FlashPaperPoetry and
http://www.mothwing.com/galleries/ellensteinbaum/index.html

Registration Fee $22 per person. Send Registration By November 15th to:
Shann Palmer
2816 Parkside Avenue
Richmond, VA 23228-5563

Questions: Call (804)266-2249 or e-mail shannp@sprynet.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Registration fee: $22 per person. Send Registration By November 15th
Make checks payable to The Poetry Society of Virginia

Name(s): Tel.#:

Address: Number attending:

Box Lunch Choices: (includes sandwich, side, dessert, and drink)
___Beef
___Ham
___Chicken
___Vegetarian

DIRECTIONS TO GRACE COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
1627 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA
From the North:
Take I95 south to Richmond, Exit onto Boulevard South,
go about 1.5 miles to Broad Street (Rt. 250) turn left,
proceed east on Broad about 2 miles to Lombardy, turn right (south) onto Lombardy, go through two lights. Just past the J.E.B. Stuart monument there is an alley between First English Lutheran Church and a parking garage. Go down the alley to the open parking behind Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. The door leading from the parking lot will be open.
From the West:
Take I64 to I95 South. At the merge, stay in the far right lane to the Boulevard South exit. go about 1.5 miles to Broad Street (Rt. 250) turn left, proceed east on Broad about 2 miles to Lombardy, turn right (south) onto Lombardy, go through two lights. Just past the J.E.B. Stuart monument there is an alley between First English Lutheran Church and a parking garage. Go down the alley to the open parking behind Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. The door leading from the parking lot will be open.
From the South and the East (from I64 west to I95 North):
Take I95 North to the Boulevard/Hermitage Rd. exit. Take a left onto Hermitage Rd. Go South about 2 miles to Broad Street (Rt. 250) turn left, proceed east on Broad about 2 miles to Lombardy, turn right (south) onto Lombardy, go through two lights. Just past the J.E.B. Stuart monument there is an alley between First English Lutheran Church and a parking garage. Go down the alley to the open parking behind Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. The door leading from the parking lot will be open.

The Poetry Society of Virginia