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The Promise of Renewal
As I write, the vernal equinox invites spring into our lives. This time of renewal promises the lift of color into our landscape as flowers, shrubs and trees come back to life. Early blooming daffodils give way to redbuds and dogwoods, iris and trillium. Sonnets of birdsong, squirrel chatter, and peepers wake the season. It is somehow odd, yet fitting, that just as Tennessee comes back into bloom, our society bursts into the last blooms of its season.
In April we will celebrate our society and poetry at our 67th Annual Poetry Festival! In William G. Wright’s workshop we will explore ways to enhance our poetry and approach revision. Festival contest entries this year were fierce, and we can’t wait to share the winning poems. A giant THANK YOU to our sponsors and judges, with special recognition to guest judges Matthew Wimberley, Tom Holmes, Susan Chamberlain, Aime Whittemore and Crystal Robbins. Many thanks also to Deborah Adams, for her tireless effort as contest coordinator.
Results are also starting to come in for our student contests. THANK YOU to student contest chair Seth Grindstaff and judges Scott Honeycutt (High School) and Jeff Price (Middle School). Elementary contest judging will be underway soon.
We are already planning programs for the coming year, and our critique groups continue. We continue to make inroads into communities across the state to help you find opportunities in yours. Soon, we will elect next year’s leaders and begin our own cycle of renewal. (I will be sharing our proposed Board for vote in the next few weeks, along with a listing of our extended leadership team.)
Reflecting on the past 10 and a half months, we’ve seen exponential membership growth, and we want to find ways to better connect members to each other in the coming year. (To that end, we invite interested members to consider working on member-connecting projects with our Regional Connections Committee or Membership Chair.) We’ve undertaken new ways of doing business, like accepting online payments, applications and contest entries. We will apply learnings to the coming year. As we look ahead, we seek to solidify and expand upon ideas and programs for members that nurture and promote poets and poetry across our state.
I invite all of our members to reflect on the past year and let us know about your experience. Share the highlights and lowlights with us. Tell us what you’d like to see happen for members. As a society for poets, by poets, we want to be sure we are meeting your needs. We need to understand where we are getting things right and where we can improve. Your message matters. Email us at poetrytennessee@gmail.com.
I also invite you to renew your membership in the coming month. Same low fee, continuing focus on poets and poetry. Since 1953, we’ve worked to create a community for poets to grow, flourish, and gain recognition. Let’s do this again next year. Even better.
With gratitude and excitement—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
A New Poetry Collection from Richard Spisak
Richard (Rick) Spisak’s poetry collection, Stone Poetry (Read Green Press), was released October 2023. The book features poetry recently performed in international settings such as Hong Kong, Singapore, London and San Francisco.
Stone Poetry is available for order now. Learn more about Read or Green Books.
About the Author
Richard W. Spisak Jr. has performed as a light artist in Planetariums and toured as a laser artist in both North and South Americas. He has been a Writer/Producer/Director in live theatre, TV, radio, and the web. His political and anti-war essays have been published in volumes for three decades.
Richard has published two short story collections. The first, Two Small Windows, in a Pair of Mirror Doors, features stories about Aliens, Ashrams, and Gurus. His second collection, Between the Silences, includes both fiction and non-fiction and has been lauded from Asia to the Americas.
In 2022 Richard published the poetry he has been performing for the last decade in a volume entitled 7370 Allen Drive. Since 2022 he has produced an international literary webcast, Poets of the East, featuring poets from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It has just wrapped up its fifth season.
Richard now lives in the mountains of Tennessee.
More
- Contact Rick at rick@averyvoice.com
- POETS OF THE EAST
- Two Small Windows in a pair of mirror doors A short story collection with a series of adventures with aliens, ashrams and artifacts.
- Between the Silences A second selection of short stories with a smattering of non-fiction as well as dream-time and alternative reality tales.
- 7370 Allen Drive A collection of 30 years of competitive, spoken word, humorous, thought-provoking and scientific poetry. Performed across the globe.
- Multimedia Art Work PNN- Progressive News Network – Produced by News Director Rick Spisak (newmercurymedia.com)
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Holding Space for Poets
This winter, two tiny miracles entered this world and my inner circle: lovely grand nieces, born to first-time parents. Alongside my unwavering love for my nephews, their wives, and these sweet baby girls arose a thought planted by Ed Mabrey at last year’s National Federation of State Poetry Society’s (NFSPS) convention: each of us is a poem. Like us, these newborn girls are already poems … and poets.
In a recent NFSPS President’s meeting, member Russell Strauss remarked how important it is to plant seeds in young people to propagate a healthy future for poetry and poetry societies. As I consider our society, I see founders, leaders, volunteers, and members who forged a 70-year legacy; the people who tend our garden today; and those who will create our future. I wonder if seeds of poetry were (or will be) planted in us (a poetry class, student poetry contest, a book….) or if we poets are the seeds, immersed in nurturing soil. As William Stafford said, “Everyone is born a poet – a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words.”
Stafford continues, “I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?” But what if we just pause? What if a community keeps our place warm for when we return? Isn’t Poetry Society of Tennessee such a place, where each of us can jump in and take part in society offerings that serve our unique journeys? I invite you to take part in activities that support you and to share ideas you may have to help us improve.
Our program year will end in April. We await results for student contests, festival contests, and members-only contests (only one open contest left!). In March, Jake Lawson explores the sonnet (including the free-wheeling American version) and in April William Garrett Wright leads the workshop for our 67th poetry festival. Critique groups, regional activities and other community events continue. We poets collect rejections and publish poems and collections. We read. We write. We learn. We grow.
As we look ahead, our leadership team seeks to ensure our society’s continuity. To that end, we ask you to consider leadership and other volunteer roles or projects. Look for a communication in the near future about positions and opportunities becoming available short term and in future years. Help us keep a space warm for future poets and returning members alike.
This June, the NFSPS convention will be held in Roswell, Georgia, just north of Atlanta (virtual option also available). Meet fellow poets from across the country in between workshops, poetry readings, and other events. Our poetry communities, large and small, hold space for you.
With gratitude and wonder—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
March 2024 Program
THE HEARTBEAT OF THE LINE: AN EXPLORATION OF THE POWER IN SONNETS
Traditional forms can influence poetry in ways that affect us physiologically. By subtly influencing our breathing, a poem can regulate our heartbeat and develop a musicality that deepens its meaning. By observing how a sonnet’s form complements its subject, Jake’s presentation will guide participants through the nuances of metric poetry and discuss how it can enrich one’s writing, regardless of form. By writing an American sonnet (which has no strict rules), we will use the advice from Mary Oliver’s Rules of the Dance and consider how it can influence our own writing.
About the Presenter
Jake Lawson is a graduate student at ETSU, co-editor-in-chief for The Mockingbird, and a carpenter from Mooresburg, TN. He is a writer of both poetry and fiction, and his recent work focuses on the threatened and endangered bird species of East Tennessee. His work has been featured in Evoxe magazine for the Arts, Town Creek Poetry, Appalachian Places, and Tennessee Voices.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented during our upcoming PST member meeting, to be held (date and time) 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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PST 2023-2024 Elementary Student Contest Deadlines Near
Our Elementary Division 2023-2024 Student Contest nears the submission deadline. Entries must be postmarked by February 16, 2024. Any form poem is acceptable. We invite all eligible students to submit a poem.
Who is Eligible?
The competition is free and open to all Tennessee students in grades 2-5. Public, private, and home school students are eligible. Each student may submit only one poem.
Non-Tennessee residents may compete by joining the Poetry Society of Tennessee as Student Members. Get membership information.
What do Winners Receive?
Contest Awards: 1st place $25, 2nd $20, 3rd $15, 4th $10, and 5th $5.
Winners will be announced on the PST website in the spring. Winning poems will be published in the 2023-2024 edition of Tennessee Voices.
Get More Details
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Things That Stick
As cold weather swept across the nation (including my Tennessee home), I sat in a warmer spot: the Gulf Coast of Florida. I savored the vast expanse of emerald water, sunlight reflecting on waves; shoreline birds scuttling, skimming, soaring, diving and floating; sunrises and sunsets blazing across blue skies in salmon, persimmon, lemon and gold with shadowy, cloud-grey puffs and streaks. (Still, I felt connected to Tennessee: the sand that stuck to my feet is perfectly white, round, grounded down Appalachian quartz.)
What I missed was my favorite part of a Tennessee winter: snowfall’s hushed reverence (especially at daybreak), the snow’s nightlight reflection through the darkest hours, the beauty of a blanketed landscape, whooshing sleds and bright laughter of neighbors gathering on the snow-covered (and perfect for sledding) hill in my yard—moments made possible when snow sticks.
As the turning of a calendar year reminds us, winter is a time for death and renewal. I could muse about New Year’s resolutions and offer odds as to how many will stick, but I would rather reflect on things more absolute. The way water joins to create puddles, ponds, creeks, lakes, rivers, oceans. The silence of snow. How poetry shifts—like tides, landscapes, seasons, weather … and sticks with us through centuries (like this famous Du Fu poem from the 700s, discussed on a recent Poetry for All podcast episode). How fortunate we are to carry on this ancient art and put our own imprint on poetry. How wonderful we can join together on the journey.
As we roll out the last few months of our program year, we will have an opportunity to explore the ways poetic forms stick and shift, the beauty inherent in poetic art and craft. I invite you to join us in workshop-style member meetings, as Emily Wilson explores the “criminally underutilized” villanelle and Jake Lawson explores the sonnet (including the free-wheeling American version). William Garrett Wright will lead the workshop for our 67th poetry festival (stay tuned for details!). Consider joining a critique group and participating in contests. Share your successes. Read a poem at a meeting! I find a special joy in experiencing your poetry and learning about your poetic endeavors. Like weather, sand, water, snow, poetry—discovering the poems in each of us is a thing that sticks.
With reverence and anticipation—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee -
February 2024 Program
“PARADIGM FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA“: VILLANELLES AND THE POETRY OF OBSESSION
In the words of Stephen Fry, the villanelle form “seems to appeal to outsiders, or those who might have cause to consider themselves as such.” Criminally underutilized, the villanelle seeks to emphasize the obsessive nature of love, loss, and maddening frustration – both in humor and in earnest. From its archaic origins in Medieval Spain as a choral poem to its resurgence amongst the confessional poets with Sylvia Plath, the reaches of the villanelle span a wide spectrum in both form and content. This workshop-focused class will seek to illuminate a form forgotten by time with a special emphasis on gothic themes within the villanelle – the spooky, morbid, obsessive epoch of literature that slots perfectly within the form’s framework.
About the Presenter
Emily Wilson is an English literature graduate student at ETSU, graduating in the spring of 2024. Her poetry has been published in ETSU’s creative writing magazine The Mockingbird, of which she is currently serving as the co-executive editor with Jake Lawson, and the Poetry Society of Tennessee’s 2022-2023 edition, where she won first place in the ETSU student competition for her poem “après moi, le déluge.” She has an interest in gothic and formal poetry, particularly the villanelle. Her favorite poet is Robert Browning.
MEETING INFORMATION
This program will be presented during our upcoming PST member meeting, to be held (date and time) 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.
PST News
Poetry Society of Tennessee 