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Heat and Happiness
As I write, bees are abuzz, grass is growing almost too quickly to maintain, and temperatures are soaring into summer degrees. Our 2023-2024 anthology is in process. We held our first member meeting this year, where we recognized volunteers for their time, energy, and passion. I reiterate my endless gratitude here. The blend of volunteers and participating members is the not-so-secret recipe for success. We held our first board meeting, too, with PST leaders eager to start on long-standing programs and new initiatives. The shifting PST year and season seep happiness into every cell. I’m looking forward to the coming summer vibe and what lies ahead for PST.
I’m also preparing for a trek to Roswell, Georgia, in early June to attend the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) Convention. It will be the first I’ve attended in person. I’m excited to meet people I’ve only interacted with via email and Zoom meetings (including PST members!), and I look forward to the programming. During the convention, I’ll provide an annual report during the President’s meeting, and several fellow members will join me as delegates during the NFSPS Plenary session. Many thanks to Russell Strauss, Cynthia Storrs, and JoAn Howerton for volunteering to represent us.
Last month I reported we would end our year on April 30 with 113 members. I was a little low. It was 116 (for those keeping count, that’s a 52% growth over last year). Many thanks to those of you who have already renewed, and a warm welcome to our new members. We’re working on some wonderful opportunities for you this year. A big thank you also to the folks who have stayed in or stepped into volunteer roles for our society: you make member opportunities possible. For those still considering renewal or new membership, we welcome you. Join us for our 71st year.
As our 70th year cools to a close, I feel the heat of what’s coming and the energy of poets across Tennessee. During this past year, several of you had books published (some were first collections; one was an 8th!). Many of you had poems published. (We already have more to celebrate!) This also means we have collected many rejections. And while they sometimes sting a bit, they mean we are doing the work. So let’s celebrate those, too.
Looking ahead, we’re gearing up for monthly members-only contests: to sponsor a contest, get information here. This summer join Jane Hicks and Jim Minick for generative writing workshops. (More great programs are in the works.) Join our new open mic on 1st Tuesdays in Johnson City, Tennessee, a partnership with Poetry Writers Workshop and The Philosopher’s House. Discover more in PST newsletters, on social media, and in meetings.
Here’s to a sizzling summer of poetic practice and a wonderful year for PST. We want you to have a positive experience. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out. I hope to see you soon at a PST event.
With warmth and excitement—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
PST Seeks Sponsors for 2024-2025
Members, poets and poetry lovers: as our 2024-2025 program year begins, we are seeking sponsors for our monthly members-only poetry contests. Help shape our next edition of Tennessee Voices Anthology with your thoughtful selection for a contest.
If you are interested in supporting our organization and promoting poetry in Tennessee and beyond, this is a great opportunity. You do not need to be a member to sponsor a contest.
We currently have 8 contest sponsorship openings for our members-only contests. We offer two ways to submit your sponsorship applications: by mail (get sponsorship form here) or online. Should applications exceed our capacity, we will return funds / undeposited checks to you.
Got questions? Reach out to poetrytennessee@gmail.com with subject line SPONSORSHIP.
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Join us for 2024-2025
If you’re already a member, you know about the opportunities Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) offers. When you choose to join PST, you discover how we hold space for poets across Tennessee and beyond. PST helps poets of all experience levels develop and practice their craft, from page to stage. Our hands-on approach includes educational programs, critique sessions, regional gatherings, readings, contests and festivals. Through these activities, PST strives to create a vibrant community for poets and poetry lovers and help poets pursue excellence no matter where they call home. Learn more.
If you’re 18 or older, you’re welcome. High school students can join with a student membership, too! Learn more about PST membership. When you join PST, you also become a member of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.
Renew or join soon to experience all PST has to offer during its 71st year: the upcoming program year runs May 2024 – April 2025. Ready to join or renew now? You can renew now online or mail in an application.
Got questions? Contact us using our website contact form or by emailing poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
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An Ending and an Invitation
As I write, the dogwoods are in full bloom, the end of April nears, and only a few days of our program year remain. I’m grateful for simple pleasures, like a dogwood bloom, and for complex ones, like the deft coordination that delivers educational programs (and replays), or the work that creates festivals and contests, or the effort behind publishing an anthology.
Congratulations to poet contestants and winners and to all who published poetry this year. As for our top PST contest winners, our anthology board has begun work, and we anticipate releasing our newest edition in late summer. I look forward to the anthology, more of your published poems, and a growing personal collection of your collections.
As I reflect upon the wisdom our program presenters shared this year, two things stand out:
- We must make space in our lives to create and grow (and there are so many ways to do this!).
- Being part of a community can help us grow faster and go further.
To those ends, our society works to provide programs and highlight opportunities to help you to pursue excellence and connect with a community. It’s exciting to watch poets grow their knowledge, skills, and confidence. It’s fun to share in the excitement of publication (and rejection goals, too!). It’s meaningful to be part of a workshop or peer review group. It’s a joy to read your work.
We will close our program year with 113 members, and I hope we see more poets join us next year. My dream is that Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) will become a hub for poets, connecting you to PST-sponsored activities and other community activities or groups that support you in your work. If you are so moved, I invite you to help us reach that goal.
For each of our current members, my wish is that you found something of value in our programs this year. I hope you will renew for 2024-2025. For those considering membership, I invite you to explore our website, reach out to us: visit with us as a guest and see if PST is for you.
A big thank you to members for your vote of confidence in our proposed leadership board. We are already working on plans and projects for the coming year. As we move forward, we’d love to know what is working well for you and where we might improve. We welcome your feedback.
I invite you to join us May 11 at our next monthly member meeting. This will be the last meeting of our 70th year, and we will celebrate with some fun activities! But before that, we will recognize the people who powered the society and made last year possible: our volunteers. (Members will receive a link in the near future. If you are not a member and are interested in attending, reach out.) I hope to see you at a meeting soon.
With gratitude and anticipation—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
May 2024 Program: Honoring, Gathering, & Writing
As PST’s program year kicks off, we will begin the year with a celebration of volunteers from the 2023-2024 year. Afterward, members will meet in breakout rooms to socialize and discuss highlights and challenges for poets in their regions. Participants will also be invited to write to a prompt.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented during our upcoming PST member meeting, to be held May 11 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm Eastern / 1:00 – 3:00 pm Central via Zoom. Members will be provided a link a few days prior. If you are interested in learning more about PST, check out our website. If you’d like to attend our meeting as a guest, contact us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
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67th Annual Festival Features Writing Perspectives and Winning Poems
On April 13, 2024, attendees from across Tennessee and beyond came together on Zoom for PST’s 67th Annual Poetry Festival. Attendees explored writing perspectives in a workshop. Following the workshop, PST announced contest results and poets read winning poems that will be published in PST’s forthcoming Tennessee Voices Anthology, 2023-2024.
Workshop
Following opening remarks by Festival Coordinator Howard Carman and President Lisa Kamolnick, workshop leader and guest judge William G. Wright gave a candid talk about the challenges of writing poetry as he discussed invoking the senses, embracing Socratic ignorance to power your poetry and how to use perspective to improve poetic revisions. He also offered a method he uses to create and submit poetry through the year and provided members a prompt for later use. Members will be sent a replay link in an upcoming meeting notice.
Contest Winners
Following a brief intermission, Deborah Adams announced festival contest results, and a group of poets read poems selected for inclusion in Tennessee Voices, 2023-2024. Howard Carman announced the Best of Fest winner along with monthly and student contest results. First place poems from festival, member, and student contests along with Tennessee Voices contest finalists will be published in the anthology. See a full list of festival contest winners here, monthly contests winners here, and student contest winners here.
Best of Fest Goes to ….
Best of the Fest is an award presented to the top poem among winning festival poems. Workshop presenter William G. Wright, the guest judge for this special award, selected the Best of Fest winner. Danita Dodson won Best of Fest for her poem “Bits and Pieces.” Look for “Bits and Pieces” and other winning poems in Tennessee Voices Anthology, 2023-2024 this summer.
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PST Announces 2023-2024 Student Contest Results
Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) is pleased to announce the winners of our 2023-2024 student contests.
About the Contest
The contest divisions were as follows:
High School Division (Grades 9-12) Free Verse Poem
Middle School Division (Grades 6-8) Free Verse Poem
Elementary Division (Grades 2-5) Any Poem FormThe competition was open all Tennessee students in grades 2-12 (public, private, and home school students and to PST student members from any state. Student submitted a single poem for consideration.
Contest awards for each division are as follows: 1st place $25, 2nd $20, 3rd $15, 4th $10, and 5th $5. In addition, top winning poems will be published in a forthcoming edition of PST’s anthology, Tennessee Voices.
High School Division Results
Prizes
1st Place: Miriam Manna for “Court House on a Thursday Afternoon” West Ridge High School, Blountville TN, student of Mr Seth Grindstaff 2nd Place: Aimee Segoviano for “Benedictions" East High School, Memphis TN, student of Ms Maria Scudder Walters 3rd Place: Kaiowa Hatfield for “Fire Isn’t a Thing, It’s Just a Circumstance of Temperature” West Ridge High School, Blountville TN, student of Mr. Seth Grindstaff 4th Place: Lillian Bates for “February” West Ridge High School, Blountville TN, student of Mr. Seth Grindstaff 5th Place: Piper Keene for “Peace and the Absence of Chaos” Daniel Boone High School, Johnson City TN, student of Ms. Karin Orchard No honorable mentions were selected for this division.
Middle School Division Results
Prizes
1st Place: Kaydence Davis for "Your Melody"
White Station Middle School, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Karla Varriano
2nd Place: John Nguyen for "Fork in the Road"
White Station Middle, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Karla Varriano
3rd Place: Erin Goggans for "Spider Lilies"
White Station Middle School, student of Mrs. Karla Varriano
4th Place: Draven Baggett for "Nature's Rest"
Colonial Middle School, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Amber Smith
5th Place: Adaira Davis for "Focus"
William James Middle School, White Bluff TN, student of Ms. Samantha EnglandHonorable Mentions
Mycah Arnold for "Fleeting"
White Station Middle School, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Karla Varriano
Elizabeth DeBlasis for "Somewhere over the Rainbow"
Holy Trinity Montessori, Nashville TN, student of Ms. Margaret Sauers
Vincent Cubberley for "Summer Day"
Lenoir City Christian Academy, Lenoir City TN, student of Ms. Terri Walden
Braylon Robinson for "Ode to Nature"
Colonial Middle School, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Amber Smith
Yixuan Chen for "Dreaming"
White Station Middle School, Memphis TN, student of Mrs. Karla VarrianoElementary Division Results
Prizes
1st Place: Luke Pyron for “The Geyser”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
2nd Place: Martha Manire for “The Little Brown Snake”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
3rd Place: Vivian Sweeney for “Pink”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
4th Place: Finn Grindstaff for “Apples”
Providence Academy, Johnson City TN, student of Mrs. Singleton
5th Place: Marcus Hardin for “The Puppy”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn PhillipsHonorable Mentions
Samuel Bolton for “The Koala”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
Lola Loveless for “Me”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
Evelyn Johnson for “Blue Sky”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
Wren Carmona for “Draw”
Holy Trinity Montessori, Nashville TN, student of Mrs. Margaret Sauers
Hayes Ledbetter for “The Flood”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
Garrett Thomley for “The Attack on Omaha”
Columbia Academy, Columbia TN, student of Mrs. Kathryn Phillips
Ivy Janovitz for “Callen”
Holy Trinity Montessori, Nashville TN, student of Mrs. Margaret SauersAbout Our Judges
Many thanks to the judges for their review of entries and selection of contest winners. Scott Honeycutt served as judge for the High School Division, Jeff Price served as judge for the Middle School Division and Micah McCrotty served as judge for the Elementary Division.
Scott Honeycutt is currently an assistant professor of English at East Tennessee State University. His first chapbook, This Diet of Flesh, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. When he is not teaching, Scott enjoys walking the hills of Appalachia and spending time with his family.
Jeff Price is an English teacher at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee. He just completed thirty-eight years coaching wrestling on the high school, college, and middle school levels. His career earned him a spot in the Tennessee Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He currently resides in Johnson City with his wife Julie, as well as a trio of cats—Merlyn, Mister, and Cleo, and his boon companion, Dewman “Buddy” Doggs, the rescue dog who rescued him. His first poetry collection, One Steady Glance, was published by Red Hawk Publications in 2023.
Micah Daniel McCrotty lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with his wife Katherine. His poetry has previously appeared in Louisiana Literature, Storm Cellar, Still: The Journal, Sycamore Review, and the James Dickey Review among others, including Appalachian Places, a digital magazine published by the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University.
PST Student Membership
Know a high school student interested in poetry? Give the gift of membership in Poetry Society of Tennessee! At just $10 a year, it’s an incredible value.Students may attend educational programs and participate in critique groups and monthly members-onlycontests. Get membership information.
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67th Annual Poetry Festival
Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) holds an annual poetry festival for members and guests. Join us for a celebration of poets and poetry from Tennessee and beyond.
Festival Details
This free event will be held April 13, from 2:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern via Zoom. PST members and guests will be provided a link.
The festival will include a workshop presented by William G. Wright, announcement of contest winners and a reading of winning poems.
Festival Workshop
William G. Wright will present “The 8 Senses, Socratic Ignorance, Perspective: How to Approach Revision”. In this workshop, William will explain the eight senses, Socratic ignorance (learning more to understand that one will always need to learn), and how to use perspective to create more interesting writing in poetry.
William G. Wright is the author or editor of twenty-three nationally and internationally distributed books, including Grass Chapels: New & Selected Poems (Mercer University Press, 2021) and four chapbooks, including April Creatures (Blue Horse Press, 2016). Wright is series editor and volume co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology (Texas Review Press), a multivolume celebration of contemporary Southern writers. He is co-editor (with Daniel Cross Turner) of the critically acclaimed Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry (The University of South Carolina Press); and Wright co-edited (with Daniel Westover) an anthology of poems centered on the Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (Clemson University Press & University of Liverpool Press). His work has won the Appalachian Book of the Year Award, the Georgia Author of the Year Award, the Georgia Editor of the Year Award, the Terrain.org Grand Prize, the Porter Fleming Prize in Literature, the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, and many other honors.
Wright has taught creative writing and literature at Oxford College of Emory University, Emory University, The University of Tennessee Knoxville (as Writer-in-Residence), Reinhardt University, and directed masterclasses at over twenty universities throughout the United States. He earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing (Poetry) and American Literature (while studying British Literature independently) at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, where he was selected as a Center for Writers Excellence in Teaching Fellow.
A lover of surrealist visual art, British comedy, and the study of cosmology, he is a devotee of the music of J. S. Bach, as well as other music of the Baroque era.
Festival Contest and Readings
Learn who won the 67th Annual Festival contests and enjoy a reading of winning poems, including an announcement of the Best of the Fest, selected by presenter William Wright.
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Inaugural Poetry Chapbook from Natalie Kimbell
Natalie Kimbell’s first poetry chapbook, On Phillips Creek (Finishing Line Press), will be released on July 12, 2024, and is available for pre-order now through May 17, 2024.
About On Phillips Creek
In her chapbook, Natalie explores a place in Wise County, Virginia, guiding the reader along a river of stories and memories of this place and its people—gone, yet forever alive. It is a testament to the strength of women, the lasting nature of family, and the sustenance of memory.
Praise for On Phillips Creek
“The poems from On Phillips Creek are born from a place that no longer exists except in the writer’s heart, and perhaps they are made stronger for being so well kept within that private landscape. And yet, On Phillips Creek is utterly familiar, especially to those of us in Appalachia who know how coal can be valued more than life, and how a family is built on generations of women who have always had to make hard choices. And how sometimes we look back at loss with gratitude.” —Denton Loving, author of Tamp
On Phillips Creek (Finishing Line Press) is available for pre-order now through May 17, 2024. Learn more about Finishing Line Press.
About the Author
Natalie Kimbell grew up in Sequatchie County, Tennessee. She has spent forty-one years teaching English and theater arts at Sequatchie County High School. She is a mother, grandmother and lover of all things that sparkle. Her work appears in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Mildred Haun Review, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Artemis, Tennessee Voices, 23 Tales: Appalachian Ghost Stories, Legends and Other Mysteries, and Women Speak . Her first poetry chapbook, On Phillips Creek, is available with Finishing Line Press.
PST News
Poetry Society of Tennessee 