Poetry Society of Tennessee

EST. 1953

PST News

  • Tennessee Mountain Writers presents January Jumpstart XXIV

    Saturday – Sunday, January 13-14, 2024

    Mark your calendar for the second weekend in January as Tennessee Mountain Writers present January Jumpstart XXIV in person at the Comfort Inn in Oak Ridge, TN, with tracks in both Poetry and Fiction.


    Tennessee Mountain Writers and Poetry Society of Tennessee member Connie Jordan Green will present the Poetry part of the workshop. Darnell Arnoult will present the Fiction part of the workshop.

    About Connie Green

    Connie is the author of four books of poetry: Slow Children Playing and Regret Comes to Tea, from Finishing Line Press; Household Inventory, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Press 2013 Award; and most recently, Darwin’s Breath from Iris Press. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She belongs to the Tennessee Mountain Writers (Board of Directors), Knoxville Writers’ Guild, Academy of American Poets, and the Authors Guild; she was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the East Tennessee Hall of Fame for Writers, and a Tribute to the Arts Award from the Arts Council of Oak Ridge. She and her husband Richard, a retired engineer, have three children and seven grandchildren.

    Details & Registration

    Get registration information and more event and presenter details here.

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  • Remembering Author Smith: A Tribute by Jesse Graves

    A tribute to the remarkable life and legacy of Arthur Smith, “A Poet of the Heart” was recently penned by Jesse Graves, capturing the essence of a poet, mentor, and friend. Graves beautifully reminisces about Smith’s profound influence on his life and the poetic community.

    Graves eloquently highlights Smith’s journey, from California to Knoxville, and the impact he made during his thirty-year tenure at the University of Tennessee. Graves paints a picture of Smith’s teaching style—gentle yet exacting—and his dedication to nurturing poetic talent.

    With poignant words, Graves transports readers into the world of Smith’s profound impact on the lives he touched in-person and through his work, showcasing the integration of the personal and universal experience.

    This moving tribute is a testament to the enduring impact of Arthur Smith’s legacy on those who were fortunate enough to know him. It stands as a heartfelt homage to a remarkable individual whose influence continues to resonate within the literary community.

  • December 2023 Program

    POETRY AT PLAY

    Let the poetry games begin! As we open our virtual doors to poets and poetry, we will break into groups to foster member connections and create poetry together.

    This program is about serious play. You will have the chance to meet members, connect with friends and acquaintances, write to prompts, and create poems. Try some concepts and techniques our presenters have discussed through the year as you create list-based and ekphrastic poems as a group, while generating content to use not only in group poems but in your own. A few lucky members will win poetically themed door prizes!

    MEETING INFORMATION

    Our upcoming PST member meeting will be held December 9 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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  • Come as You Are

    As autumn’s brilliant, earthy shades succumb to the silvering of winter, and warmth gives way to frozen ground and bone-chilling air, we lift our spirits with festivals and holidays—bringing light, color and celebration into our communities and homes. Doors open wide to possibilities and to comfort. For many of us, this is a time to reflect, give thanks, give gifts, renew hope … and play! Some of us, however, find this a difficult time of year. Furthermore, there is much happening in the world now to trouble one.

    As I write this in the background of conflicts across our globe, Diwali, or Festival of Lights, is underway—a celebration of light overcoming darkness. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and other holidays (and a brand new year) draw near. Each reminds me of the hope and joy that somehow coexist beside life’s burdens and brutalities. This, I believe, is the paradox that birthed poetry … and why poetry lives on. We are a species of contradictions, conflicts, and complications. Poetry helps us make sense of ourselves.

    It is in this spirit that we open our virtual doors and invite our members to join us on December 9 for an afternoon of society, to ”play” and create poetry together. This is not a holiday party, per se; rather, we seek to honor our society’s purpose and forge poetic and human connections. 

    Meet new people, connect with old friends, write to prompts, create group poems. Try some concepts and techniques our presenters have discussed through the year.

    In recognition of the wide span of this season’s realities, the games we play and poems we create will be neither holiday-themed nor carry an expectation of lightness. Our activities will give each of us the chance to express the ups, downs and in betweens of living. For isn’t that the treasure of poetry—how it holds space for us and gives meaning to our experiences and emotions across lifetimes?

    Wherever your heart settles during this time of year, I wish you some measure of comfort and joy. May you find love and light in the darkness, gratitude for all the goodness in this world and in your life, and hope for all that is yet to come. 

    Heartfelt wishes for you and yours—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee
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  • A Dec 2 Reading by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

    On Saturday, Saturday, December 2, 2-3:30 PM, author Shuly Xóchitl Cawood presents Dogs, Confessions, & Dark Chocolate: A Talk & Reading with Shuly Xóchitl Cawood. The event will be held at Fischman Gallery, 133 N. Commerce Street, Johnson City, TN, and is free and open to the public.

    During this event, Shuly Xóchitl Cawood will read from her latest collection,  Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough. Shuly will also talk about why and how a tiny piece can have a large impact on a reader, and she will share some of her go-to tools for writing short works as well as share examples from her own writing.

    About Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough

    In Shuly Xóchitl Cawood’s newest collection, she shares moments that matter, “where life took a turn, or a truth was revealed.” Her poems “mine regret and longing, travel through joy and sorrow, and hold on to a vision of the future while trying to let go of the past.”

    Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough is available for purchase.

    About the Author

    Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is an award-winning writer and the author of six books, including Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough: poems (Press 53, 2023) and Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press, 2021), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. She has an MFA from Queens University, and she loves leading writing workshops, hiking, and eating dark chocolate. Learn more at shulycawood.com. You can sign up for her monthly author newsletter here.

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  • November 2023 Poetry Contest Results

    The Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) formally announced its members-only November 2023 contest results at their November 11 member meeting. Winners receive cash prizes. The first place poem will be published in an upcoming edition of PST’s anthology, Tennessee Voices.

    Many thanks to sponsor and judge JoAn Howerton, who selected the following winners and honorable mentions:

    • 1st: “Thanksgiving After the Prognosis” by KB Ballentine
    • 2nd: “The Perfect Thanksgiving As I Remember It” by William Hill
    • 3rd: “Childhood: Thanksgiving” by Cynthia Storrs
    • 1HM: “Thanksgiving my 9th Year” by Howard S. Carman Jr.
    • 2HM: “Last Thanksgiving in Jonesboro” by Lisa Riley
    • 3HM: “Thanksgiving” by Dr. Emory Jones

    Meeting attendees enjoyed the readings of these winning poems.

    Enter Your Poem

    January’s contest is right around the corner, but you have to enter to win. For January’s contest, sponsor William Hill Art and Poetry seeks a poem about “Memories of a Tennessee city or small town.” Mail and email entries will be accepted. Get contest details.

    A few reminders:

    • January’s contest entries must be emailed or postmarked between December 1 and 15.
    • February’s contest must be postmarked between January 1 and 15.
    • Each contest notes if email entries will be accepted. The email for email entries is pstsubmissions@gmail.com. (Be sure to attach one file with ID and one file without ID.)

    Not a member? It’s not too late to join. Learn more.

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  • November 2023 Program

    Poetry and Place

    Our emotions and histories are intimately connected to the places where we live and work. In this workshop, we’ll examine poems that are primarily driven by a relationship to place. We’ll also generate our own place poems, using the physical locations that mean the most to us as symbols of our emotions and to reveal our true characters.

    About the Presenter

    Denton Loving is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds (Main Street Rag) and Tamp (Mercer University Press). He is also the editor of Seeking Its Own Level: an anthology of writings about water (MotesBooks). For over a decade, he co-directed the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University where he also co-edited drafthorse: the literary journal of work and no work. He has received scholarships and fellowships from organizations such as the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, the Eckerd College Writers Conference, and the Key West Literary Seminars.  He earned the Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. He is a co-founder and an editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf, and he is a poetry mentor in the MTSU Writes program at Middle Tennessee State University. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including Iron Horse Literary Review, Kenyon Review, Tupelo Quarterly, , Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Threepenny Review, and Ecotone.

    MEETING INFORMATION

    This program will be presented during our upcoming PST member meeting, to be held November 11 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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  • Warmth of Community

    As I write this, a blaze of fall colors is about to peak in northeast Tennessee. When I enter the slice of calendar I set aside to hike into the chilled beauty of fall’s tapestry, I’ll carry the warmth (and support) of a broad and growing community. This warmth comes from interacting with our members, with other poets and with lovers of language—in Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) working meetings, critique groups, and programs; at community contests, readings, open mics, and poetry circles; and through a host of interactions with poets in friendship and for the sake of poetry. This past week, I had an opportunity to engage in all of the foregoing, and the positive energy of this creative community lingers within.

    Writing is more of a solo activity, but it benefits from community. We benefit from community. And I’m incredibly excited that our PST community is growing. Each month more poets and poetry lovers join us. Because we are spread across the state and beyond, it can be challenging to forge connections, to create a closeness that perhaps comes more easily face-to-face. But with a focused effort, I believe it’s possible. Here are ways we seek (or will be) to create community for you:

    • We will create opportunities for you to interact with each other in our virtual monthly meeting space (and will explore additional touch points).
    • We will support members wishing to create a critique group or similar working group. We welcome members to join existing groups with space available as well.
    • We will work to connect you to on-the-ground and virtual poetic activities in our regions, in bordering states and beyond. If you know of a community activity or poetry-oriented organization, please share with us: email poetrytennessee@gmail.com or share on our Facebook page.
    • We want to feature our members in bios and through brief articles. If you’ve not submitted a bio, it’s not too late. Learn more.

    We are open to ideas from our members, especially those focused on community. Let us know what’s working, what’s not, and what questions you have. This is our society: we were founded by poets for poets, and 70 years later, that has not changed. Let’s create something beautifully meaningful together. 

    Warm wishes—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee
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  • October 2023 Poetry Contest Results

    The Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) formally announced its members-only October 2023 contest results at their October 14 member meeting. Winners receive cash prizes. The first place poem will be published in an upcoming edition of PST’s anthology, Tennessee Voices.

    Many thanks to sponsor and judge Howard Carman, who selected the following winners and honorable mentions:

    • 1st (tie): “Rufous Hummer” by Jerry Buchanan and “To My Mickey Mouse Watch” by Russell H. Strauss
    • 3rd: “Grieving” by Dr. Emory Jones 

    Meeting attendees enjoyed the readings of these winning poems.

    Enter Your Poem

    November’s contest is due October 15. If it’s too late to mail in your entry, you can still submit via email to pstsubmissions@gmail.com through October 15. Be sure to follow submission instructions!

    December’s contest is right around the corner, but you have to enter to win. Sponsor Diane Clark seeks your best poem about “Harmony.” Get contest details.

    REMINDER: for email entries send to pstsubmissions@gmail.com. Be sure to send one file with ID and one file without ID.

    Not a member? It’s not too late to join. Learn more.

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  • 67th Annual Poetry Festival Contests Underway

    67th Annual Poetry Festival Contests Underway

    Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) is excited to announce the kickoff of our 67th Annual Poetry Festival Contests. We offer 17 contests, more than $1,000 in prizes, publication opportunities and a Best of Fest Award. We’re excited about the line-up and hope you will be, too. The contests are made possible by PST and a host of sponsors, to whom we are most grateful.

    About the Contests

    Contests explore a variety of themes and forms, several Tennessee-centered. First place poems will be published in Tennessee Voices Anthology, 2023-2024. In addition, poems by winners and finalists of the “Tennessee Voices” contest will be published in the anthology. Other winning poems may be published at the discretion of the society. Poets whose poems are published will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology, as will sponsors and judges.

    For a low entry fee of $10 for members or $15 for non-members, poets can enter all contests for which they are eligible (15 contests are open to anyone). PST accepts checks or online payment for fees. Entries may be submitted by email or mail and must be submitted or postmarked by December 15, 2023.

    Prize amounts vary by contest. In addition to individual contest prizes, first place poems will be eligible for the “Best of Fest” award for the top poem of the festival. An outside judge will select the winning poem. The prize is $250.

    Contest winners will be announced at PST’s 67th Annual Poetry Festival to be held spring 2024.

    Get more contest details here. Download a printer-friendly contest packet here.

    About Tennessee Voices Anthology

    Tennessee Voices Anthology is a publication of Poetry Society of Tennessee. It includes winning poems from member contests, student contests, festival contests and more. Get more information, including how to purchase anthology editions, here.

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