4th Annual Poetry Contest

It is that time of year again. I find it hard to believe that this is the 4th year that I’ve had a writ­ing con­test. The first three years were haiku con­tests, this year I’m broad­en­ing it in form and being a bit more spe­cific in regard to con­tent. I hope you like the prize. April is National Poetry Month and my hum­ble con­test lasts the thirty days. Details past the jump.

Require­ments:

Don Eulert’s book Field: A Haiku Cir­cle presents an admirable require­ment for this lit­tle con­test of mine; namely:

…haiku should sim­ply arise out of a gen­uinely felt moment, and…“be the starting-​points for trains of thoughts and emo­tions.” … A short poem like haiku needs jux­ta­po­si­tion. A haiku that might become a “starting-​place for trains of thought and emo­tion” begins with a non-​didactic Zen atten­tion. Then maybe a cou­ple of things come into aware­ness simul­ta­ne­ously, with a lit­tle sur­prise. … More a way of being in the world than a way of writ­ing, haiku sup­pos­edly see with­out ego. … But Robert Haas notes that even Basho takes us into “the deeper mys­ter­ies” through what Haas calls “the scent of a par­tic­u­lar human life.”

But as I’ve already said, this is a bit broader than a haiku con­test. Any kind of poetry is accept­able, but what I’d like you to do is to strive to teach with­out teach­ing, show with­out telling and be with­out being self-​conscious. The poem doesn’t have to be those things, but I’d appre­ci­ate it if you tried writ­ing in that sort of mind­set. If you reread this you might real­ize that there aren’t really any require­ments. Don’t worry about your writ­ing skill. Each poem is an equally won­der­ful gift in my eyes.

Sub­mis­sion:

Poems should be e-​mailed to poems@​organicmechanic.​org no later than April 30th. Any­thing received in May isn’t eli­gi­ble to win a prize.

Rules and Disclaimer:

1. Don’t pla­gia­rize. I’ll find out. I’m good like that.
2. I will post your poem here, you will still retain the copy­right to your work, I’m just repro­duc­ing it for everyone’s enjoy­ment.
3. I’m the sole judge. Ooh, Scary.
4. I’m not mak­ing any money off this con­test, or your poetry.
5. Any­thing else I for­got goes here.

Prizes:

Four folks will get prizes. Only the grand prize is excep­tional. The rest are sort of lame.

Mega-​Jumbo-​Super-​Happy-​Joy-​Sauerkraut Grand Prize:

• A copy of Don Eulert’s Field: A Haiku Cir­cle. Only 1,000 copies were printed, so this is a rare treat and quite hard to get ahold of.

Field: A Haiku Cir­cle is the title of Don Eulert’s col­lec­tion of prize-​winning haiku for bed­side read­ing, med­i­ta­tion, and hol­i­day gift­ing. Field is the result of one year in which Dr. Eulert wrote a haiku each day as a method of con­tem­pla­tive prac­tice. Dr. Eulert has pro­mul­gated Zen and Haiku in teach­ing at Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity, Reed Col­lege, the C.G. Jung Institute-​Zurich, and at Alliant’s San Diego cam­pus, where he has been a pro­fes­sor of cul­tural psy­chol­ogy for over 20 years. In 1963, Dr. Eulert co-​founded Amer­i­can Haiku, the first jour­nal in Eng­lish devoted to Zen poems in the Japan­ese tra­di­tion. That pub­li­ca­tion led to flour­ish­ing haiku soci­eties and pub­li­ca­tion of haiku in numer­ous lan­guages. Pub­lished by AHA Books, Gualala, CA.

• A per­son­al­ized mix CD.

ROFLMAO-​Indigo-​Kielbasa-​Opium-​Heavenly-​Three-​People-​Tied-​For-​First-​Runner-​Up First Run­ners Up Prize:

• A per­son­al­ized mix CD.

Any ques­tions? Shoot me an email.

Comments on this post

  1. kara

    Gee has it already been a year?
    I’ve been so busy this last year — my poetry has been put on the back burner…
    Look for­ward to read­ing all the entries.