Sherry Chandler

Announcements

Isn’t that a sterling blog post title?

I was thinking the other morning that, if I got to start over again with this blog, that I would just have numbered the posts. I would now be up to 3,239.

Oh well. Some things.

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Following Lance Mannion, here are some ways to help Haiti.

Doctors Without Borders
American Red Cross

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Mick Kennedy has asked us to remind everybody that they still have three days to get their submission in for The Heartland Review’s 2010 Joy Bale Boone Prize. January 16 is a postmark deadline. Guidelines at the link. Leatha Kendrick is the judge this year.

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The Review has also put out a call for art.

The Heartland Review and Morrison Gallery at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College invite submissions of artwork for a juried exhibition. The theme for the 2010 show is inspired by the idea of “organic setting.” Over the last hundred years artists have continually turned to organic design as a response to the growing ubiquity of mass-produced, machine-made and computer-generated designs. For some, organic is an attempt to reevaluate what it means to be “modern. “ We welcome works of art of every media type and style that address the topic of organic, organic design or organic setting through one or more of the following themes:

• Nature
• Natural Materials
• The Body
• Responses to Modernity
• Identity
• Environmentalism
• Urbanism

The Heartland Review asks for a $10 contribution for up to six entries to support the journal and the contest/show. Artists may submit up to six pieces; however, all artwork must have been created in the last six months prior to submission. The deadline for submissions is 1 February 2010. Finalists will be selected by a committee composed of two professional artists, two Morrison Gallery representatives, and one representative from The Heartland Review.

The artwork of these finalists will be displayed in the Morrison Gallery at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College and be published in the 2010 spring/fall issues of The Heartland Review. The artwork which best depicts an “organic setting” will be awarded the 2010 spring issue’s cover and a $250 cash prize. The gallery exhibit will run from 5 April – 14 May 2010, with a reception to be held on Thursday, 15 April.

Interested individuals should submit:

• A digital image of their work to be considered (no larger than 300 dpi resolution)
• Full identification of the work (artist name, phone number, title, medium, dimension, and value)
• A short artist statement, no longer than one page in length
• $10 contribution, with checks made payable to “The Heartland Review”

Send submissions or questions via email to: Mick.Kennedy@KCTCS.edu or creynolds0077@kctcs.edu; please include “Heartland Art” in the email subject heading.

$10 contribution should be mailed to:

THR Art Exhibit, c/o Mick Kennedy
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College
600 College Street Road
Elizabethtown, KY 42701

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Speaking of Leatha Kendrick, don’t miss the opportunity to read her List Poem at the Public Republic.

Also new at the Public Republic, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer’s interview of Sheri Wright, “Poetry was a voice I didn’t know I had”.

Joy Bale Boone Prize 2010

Leatha Kendrick is the author of three volumes of poetry, the most recent one, Second Opinion (2008). She currently leads workshops in poetry and life writing at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky, and directs their reading series, New Books by Great Writers. Leatha has also led workshops in writing and healing at regional and national conferences and has been a presenter at several of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs’ annual meetings. Her poems and essays appear widely in journals and anthologies including Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia; The Kentucky Anthology—Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State; and I to I: Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists. She co-edited Crossing Troublesome, Twenty-Five Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop and wrote the script for a documentary film: A Lasting Thing for the World—The Photography of Doris Ulmann. The recipient of grants in both poetry and fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation of Women, she is at work on a novel, entitled Leavings.

Guidelines:

• THR asks for a $10 contribution for up to 3 poems to support the contest and our journal. Please make checks out to The Heartland Review.
• Send a cover page with name, address, and a short biography (30 words maximum).
• Name and address should not appear on poems.
• Poems should be typed and no longer than 30 lines.
• Send a Self Addressed Stamped Legal-sized Envelope for results.

Mail entries to:

2010 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize
c/o Mick Kennedy
Elizabethtown Community & Technical College
600 College Street Road
Elizabethtown, KY 42701

Winners will be announced in April and invited to read at the Morrison Gallery Poetry Series Poetry Month Celebration

For more information e-mail: Mick.Kennedy@KCTCS.edu
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*in the event of a tie, prize money will be divided accordingly

Shape of a Box #46

I’m delighted to point you to Shape of a Box #46. My favorite video mag now has its own web page and #46 features one of my favorite Kentucky poets and a fellow member of the Editorial Board for The Heartland Review, the one and only Erin Keane.

Erin has put together a fine video of some fine poems with help from Drew Zip. Go check it out.

First Annual Ruth Redel Poetry Prize

First Annual Ruth Redel Poetry Prize

First Prize – 200 dollars and publication in the fall issue of the Heartland Review

THR asks for a tax-deductible 3 dollar contribution to support the contest and the publication. Please make checks out to The Heartland Review.

Send a cover page with titles of poems, author’s name, address and a short biography (40 words, maximum.)

Names and addresses should NOT appear on the poems themselves.

Poems should be typed and should be no longer than 30 lines.

Post mark deadline for entries is August 1, 2009.

Winners will be announced in October and invited to read at the Morrison Gallery Poetry Series. Send a self-addressed stamped LEGAL size envelope in order to receive results. Mail entries to:

Ruth Redel Poetry Contest
c/o Mick Kennedy
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College
600 College Street Rd
Elizabethtown KY 42701

For more information, call 270-706-8407 or e-mail Mick.Kennedy@kctcs.edu

More items

Via Negative posting Honduran poetry here.

The Reluctant Poet Laureate

The Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature presents an opportunity to focus on the fine literature the state of Kentucky has produced, bringing it to the nation’s attention. Sarabande will publish one book annually of short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, a novella(s), or short novel. (Must be postmarked in July.)

Call for Submissions to Motes Books Motif 2 with the theme of “Chance.” Deadline September 1.

First Annual Ruth Redel Poetry Prize

Jean Tucker

Thasos

The sea would throw its stones
against my balcony and rake them back again.
In the gizzard of sleep I would toss all night.

If I waited long enough
morning would come.
I would hear the cough and sputter
of the country bus waking up, the father
calling good-bye, putting the engine in gear
for the first trip around the island

and the mother and daughter would come
with glasses of fresh orange juice and a broom
to sweep the bad dreams out of the corners,
to mop the floor tiles white,
to pinch dead blooms off the geraniums,

to speak to me in a language
of which I understood all
except the words.

—Jean Tucker, first published in First View of Mesolonghi (Grex Press,2004).
Reprinted by permission of the author.

My association with the Green River Writers has given me much; among the best gifts my friendship with Jean Tucker. I am pleased to see that more of her work is getting out there for the world to read.

Jean teaches English as a Second Language at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville and has been a writer-in-residence at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska. Her poem “From an Armament Museum” was a finalist for The Heartland Review’s 2009 Joy Bale Boone prize. You can read “Eddie Leaves His Wife” at the Tipton Poetry Journal.

Deadline extended – Heartland Review poetry prize

The deadline for The Heartland Review’s 2009 Joy Bale Boone poetry prize has been extended until February 23 because of the bad weather.

I heard this morning that several thousand people in Kentucky are still without electrical power, though the storms hit about three weeks ago.

Guidelines and more information at the website.