Poetry Society of Tennessee

EST. 1953

PST News

  • The Power of Legacy and the Promise of Possibility

    First, a big THANK YOU to members and friends who joined us for our 70th anniversary celebration. Together, we honored the seven-decade legacy of our poets and poetry. We revisited our founders and founding, enjoyed the work of PST poets past and present, shared memories, and sealed up mementos in a time capsule to be reopened on our 75th anniversary.

    This time of year, I look forward to another celebration:  the nightly lightning bug light show. The winged wonders usually arrive as spring ticks to summer. But while walking an early May evening this year, a lone firefly lit up—a full five weeks earlier than normal—and another toward the end of May. These twinkling outliers reminded me of an African proverb: “To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together.” Sometimes, you need to get out ahead of others, sometimes you need to follow the early traveler’s path, sometimes you need to slowly forge a new trail together. (And sometimes, maybe you do a little of everything.)

    Last year, our Board navigated new territory and stabilized our society. This year, I would like us to build upon that work and further our journey. Let’s explore Tennessee, discover what poets and arts communities are doing across our state, connect our poetic network in ways that might expand the impact all of us can make. Imagine holding a statewide poetry slam, collaborating with a ballet company to interpret poetry through dance, creating a quarterly e-magazine, collaborating with a community of artists, offering affiliate PST memberships to organizations, or holding regional open mic events monthly.

    Sound impossible? A little crazy? These are just a few things state societies in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies are already doing. And in many cases, their blueprint for success is available just for the asking. We can nurture our traditions, adopt others’ successes, and form the future from our own fertile imaginations. My promise is to collect and bring ideas forward so we have possibilities to explore and decide upon. 

    The power of our legacy and the possibility of promise are in all of our hearts and hands. PST happens when enough of us get involved in our past’s preservation and our future’s creation. To that end, I’d love to hear from you:

    • Let us know about other poetry-focused organizations, dance and theater companies, art galleries, and other arts associations, especially those that might be open to collaboration. (If you include website, social links, and contact information—even better!)
    • If you have energy to join a committee to help us lead, steward a tradition or explore a new direction, let us know. Today, we need an assistant treasurer, a festival chair, and a festival contest chair.
    • We always welcome help on our regional committees, and we expect to have more opportunities for you to get involved as the year progresses.

    We’re a spry 70! Let’s travel across Tennessee and light up the state with poetic energy!

    With enthusiasm—
Lisa Kamolnick
President, Poetry Society of Tennessee
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  • Arch Cowan Jones Announces Into the Now Launch Celebration

    Poetry Society of Tennessee member Arch Cowan Jones recently announced the release and launch of his poetry collection Into the Now. The event will be held at the Mary B. Martin Center for the Arts on East Tennessee State University’s Campus.

    About Into the Now

    Into the Now by Arch Cowan Jones is a fully illustrated collection of hard hitting spoken word philosophical alchemy that dances through mysticism, religion, and consciousness punctuated by a new hope for humanity.

    Into the Now is available for purchase. Learn more about Into the Now.

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  • KB Ballentine’s Spirit of Wild Now Available

    Poetry Society of Tennessee member KB Ballentine recently launched her 8th poetry collection, Spirit of Wild, May 10, 2023, at the Soddy Daisy Community Library. 

    About Spirit of Wild

    Wild weaves through each of us, but the spirit of wild doesn’t always rage. Sometimes it is the gentle, quiet moments alone in our souls that show us who and what we are. The spirit of strength, the spirit of wonder, the spirit of curiosity, the spirit of fury, the spirit of peace are all part of us. But we bottle or ignore them, questioning our anxiety and depression.

    These poems speak to that spark in each of us that we might remember even through our sorrows, tragedies, joys, and silent seasons that the spirit of wild doesn’t call us – it is us. Don’t ignore it. Don’t let it go. Hold it tight as you dream, when you wake, and as you live your day. Yes, live. Live and embrace wild.

    Praise for Spirit of Wild

    As KB Ballentine delves without fear from windowed rooms into a wilderness of forest and ocean, it soon becomes clear that even the darkness in her collection Spirit of Wild is one that teems with life, wing, and song. Ballentine shows us that there is “a shelter for the sacred in each of us.” Spirit of Wild is a balm, and I didn’t know how much I needed it.

    -Chera Hammons, author of Maps of Injury

    Spirit of Wild confirms that “each day waits with sudden mysteries, / offerings, / like dreams half-remembered / from the night.” In lyrical, precise language that throbs and pulses with the rhythms of the natural world, Ballentine celebrates the spirit of all manner of life’s organic wonders, from the fox and wren to the bee and seahorse, to lavender fog and “stones cloaked in mossy silence.” I can’t think of a better time for this exuberant collection to come to light, nor a better time to heed Ballentine’s call to “cast off the rooms where we’ve boxed ourselves tight / step into the den of the forest’s deep heart.”

    — Hayley Mitchell Haugen, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions

    Spirit of Wild and other collections are available for purchase. Explore her website, contact her or follow her on social platforms.

    About the Author

    KB Ballentine resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and teaches creative writing, theatre arts, and literature to high school and college students. She has an M.A. in Writing and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry.

    Her work has appeared in numerous journals and publications, including Atlanta Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Linnet’s Wings, Crab Orchard Review, Alehouse, Tidal Basin Review, Haight–Ashbury Literary Journal, The Sigh Press, and MO: Writings from the River.

    Ballentine’s seventh collection Edge of the Echo was published by Iris Press in May 2021. The Light Tears Loose appeared the summer of 2019 from Blue Light Press. 2017 showcased Ballentine’s fifth poetry collection Almost Everything, Almost Nothing, published by Middle Creek Publishing and Audio. In 2016, The Perfume of Leaving received the Blue Light Press Book Award.

    Her work also appears in several anthologies: White Stag: Spirit Anthology (2023), LOVE Anthology (2023), Women Speak: Volume 8 (2022), Appalachia (Un)Masked (2022), I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing (2022), The Strategic Poet (2021), Women Speak: Vol 7 (2021), Pandemic Puzzle Poems (2021), The Mountain (2021), Pandemic Evolution (2021), In Plein Air (2017), Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017), In God’s Hands (2017), River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-first Century (2015), Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI:  Tennessee (2013) and Southern Light: Twelve Contemporary Southern Poets (2011).

    She was selected as a finalist for the Southern Alliance of Literature Outstanding Writer for 2021; she was awarded the Libba Moore Gray Poetry Prize in 2016, in 2014 she was a finalist in the Ron Rash Poetry Awards, and in 2006 a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award. She was a recipient of the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2006 and in 2007.

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  • May 2023 Poetry Contest Results

    The Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) formally announced its members-only May 2023 contest results at their May 13 member meeting. Winners receive cash prizes. The first place poem will be published in an upcoming edition of PST’s anthology, Tennessee Voices.

    Sponsor and judge Dr. Diane Clark selected the following winners and honorable mentions:

    • 1st: “A New Spadille” by Howard Carman
    • 2nd: “Eighth Grade Poker” by Russell Strauss
    • 3rd: “Aces and Eights” by Emory Jones
    • 1HM: “Ace of Spades” by Pat Hope
    • 2HM: “The Last Ace” by William Hill

    Meeting attendees enjoyed the readings of these winning poems about
    “The Ace of Spades.”

    Enter Your Poem

    Stay tuned for our next season of members-only contests, and be sure to enter for your chance to win prizes and have your work published. Get details. Renew or join PST to participate in these exclusive contests. Learn more.

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  • Daylilies and a Great Big Day

    I look forward to each spring, especially as the dogwoods and irises in my yard birth plentiful, white blooms, in stark contrast to the verdant, leafy splashes of March. After they shed their snowy blooms, and June comes knocking on May’s door, daylilies burst forth as if to announce, “Summer’s coming! Summer’s coming!” And those daylilies don’t like to trumpet in the season solo. Nourish a bulb with sunlight and scant water, and in a few years you’ll have a gardenful that returns (and multiplies) year over year.

    This summer, as daylilies erupt in bright shades of citrus and sunshine, PST will celebrate a momentous milestone: 70 years of poets and poetry! Imagine that handful of enterprising Memphis-based poets in the summer of 1953—their excitement as they formally established the society, the joy of creating a community for poets. Thanks to our founders, and those that followed them, poets have returned and joined anew year over year to grow and bloom. After setting a strong foundation in west Tennessee, PST eventually propagated, and today our members spread from corner to corner of the state, into bordering states and beyond.

    Founded to promote poets and poetry and to nurture poets (present and future), PST has now delivered on its promise for seven decades. Over that time, traditions have formed: contests, a festival, an anthology, educational programs, poetry shares, critique groups, collaborations and more. At the same time, we are modernizing and enhancing operations. For example, Zoom allows members to join meetings from almost anywhere. Digital pay and an updated, expanded online presence are important upgrades already in the works this year.

    PST will always be people-powered: our members and supporters bring our mission to life through volunteerism, participation, and collaboration. I invite you to help build our stretch of PST history, to keep alive traditions and forge new practices that serve poets today and prepare for the poets of tomorrow. Participate in programs. Volunteer in a focus area that moves you: open opportunities include Assistant Treasurer, Festival Coordinator, and Festival Contest Chair. If you would like to better connect poets in your community, I encourage you to contact Pat Hope, our Regional Connections director. Options range from joining the committee to representing a new region.

    I also invite you to attend our 70th anniversary celebration on June 15 at 7:30 pm Eastern / 6:30 pm Central. We’ll have a reading of poems from past anthologies, a poetry share and a time capsule ceremony. Let’s come together like a colorful field of daylilies and spread some joy … and poetry. A huge meadow of poetry.

    Joyfully, 
Lisa Kamolnick
PST President

     

     

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  • Abby N. Lewis’ Palm up, Fingers Curled Now Available

    Plan B Press recently announced the publication of Palm Up, Fingers Curled, a chapbook of poems by Poetry Society of Tennessee member Abby N. Lewis. 

    About Palm Up, Fingers Curled

    Palm Up, Fingers Curled explores the tenuous–and dangerous–transition from innocent young girl to sexualized teenager. Many of the poems discuss the horrors women have been subjected to at the hands of men and the fates they have suffered. The title poem, “Palm Up, Fingers Curled,” which the cover is based on, describes the young female narrator sitting down at a table with her father and grandfather on her grandfather’s back porch, unknowingly entering a conversation about the kidnapping of a young woman who was recently in the news. Another poem, the first in the collection, describes an event in which the narrator comes close to becoming a missing person herself, one of the invisible women who haunt billboards, their ghosts staring out of faded, wrinkled fliers.

    The chapbook contains lighter poems as well, such as “The Flood,” which depicts three sisters enjoying a mild flood that only reaches to the edges of the lake houses in their neighborhood. It is a tame flood that does not represent a disaster but a Ponyo-style wedding of water and land. “0.6 inches” explores the responsibility in owning pets, and the ways in which owners must make critical, difficult decisions for the well-being of their domesticated friends.

    Palm Up, Fingers Curled is available through Plan B. Contact Abby by email at lewisan1@etsu.edu, or visit her website at https://freeairforfish.com/.

    About the Author

    Abby N. Lewis is a poet from Dandridge, Tennessee. She earned dual master’s degrees from ETSU in 2021, one in English and one in Communication & Storytelling Studies. Reticent, her first full-length poetry collection, was published by Grateful Steps in 2016. Her first chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Timber, The Mockingbird, Red Mud Review, and Sanctuary, among others. Her very first publication was in Gallery, the literary journal of Walters State, and she is eternally grateful. Her book reviews can frequently be found on Chapter 16’s website, as well as in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Black Moon Magazine, and The Keeping Room through Minerva Rising Press. 

    Of her first chapbook, Jesse Graves, East Tennessee State University’s Poet in Residence, whose awards include 2015 James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a 2015 induction into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, has said, “Abby N. Lewis is a young poet with an old soul, already aware of the losses of time, the pressures put upon us by growing older, and by the uncertainties of the future. She writes with rich imagery and real feeling for her subjects. . . . This Fluid Journey begins a quest, a poet’s true course, and readers will surely discover many treasures along the way.” Michael Amos Cody, her former mentor at East Tennessee State University and author of the novel Gabriel’s Songbook, has also praised her first chapbook: “The child in This Fluid Journey is as familiar as memory. She lives and plays, wanders and wonders, and readers remember days and nights and former lives lost but not wasted. But this young poet understands when to cling to and when to put away childish things, and when the latter is called for, she invests more mature settings and experiences with the same charm and mystery that nature holds for the child.”

    About the Publisher

    Plan B Press is a poetry publisher based in Alexandria, Virginia. Learn more.

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  • Poetry Society of Tennessee Celebrates 70 Years on June 15

    SEVENTY REFLECTIONS: A CELEBRATION

    On June 15, 2023, the Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) will hold a virtual celebration from 7:30-9:30 pm Eastern / 6:30-8:30 Central in honor of its 70th anniversary.

    MEETING INFORMATION

    Members and friends of PST who are subscribed to our mailing list will receive an invitation no later than May 30, 2023. If you have not received an invitation and would like to attend, please email poetrytennessee@gmail.com with subject line 70th GUEST REQUEST.

    ABOUT POETRY SOCIETY OF TENNESSEE

    PST is a non-profit organization founded by poets for poets in 1953, recognized by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. The society welcomes poets and poetry lovers from across Tennessee and beyond. In addition to regular membership, a student membership is available for high school students.

    PST offers members an inclusive, supportive community with plenty of hands-on opportunities to learn, grow, and appreciate the art and craft of poetry. Activities include but are not limited to educational programming, poetry readings, critique groups and sessions, poetry contests (including a student contest), poetry publications, and a poetry festival. PST also has a Poet Laureate program for members. Learn more.

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  • PST Kicks Off 2023-2024 Members-only Contests

    Our 2023-2024 contests begin this year with an unusual contest from Russell Strauss, which includes an opportunity to submit two poems for consideration, along with a critique of each poem a member submits. The contest is a follow-up to his May program which explored the forms.

    Submit a pantoum, a Dorsimbra, or one of each. One prize winner will be selected for each form. The pantoum is an ancient Malaysian form from the 15th century and the Dorsimbra was created by three talented past PST members far more recently: Frieda Dorris, Robert Simonton, and Eve Braden.

    More Contests

    Get details on forthcoming contests as they develop at our website contest page.

    Contest Sponsorships Available

    PST has openings for sponsorship of members-only this program year. It’s a valuable service to PST. You may judge the contest or select a judge. To sponsor a contest, complete this form and send it to Russell Strauss. Send a check with prize money to our Treasurer. Details are on the form.

  • Reflections of Gratitude

    As we near the close of National Poetry Month and our 2022-2023 PST program year, I’m filled with gratitude for the state of poetry, for the health of PST, and for the many volunteers who brought poetry to life for people of all ages across Tennessee and beyond.

    This month we announced results from PST’s annual contest for high school, middle school, and elementary students. The northeast region completed a collegiate contest in collaboration with East Tennessee State University. We held a fabulous poetry festival—our 66th such event!  Outside of PST, in Tennessee and across the country, multiple events honored poetry every week. And, while AI bots may have started penning poetry, I believe it’s still a very human endeavor at its heart.

    April brings us both a happy end and a bright beginning: as PST continues long-standing traditions, we will also build upon our regional efforts, celebrate our 70th anniversary, and offer some modern conveniences (like digital payments!).

    If you follow our Facebook page, you may have noticed our posts usually include this hopeful hashtag: #poetryisalive. I remain hopeful about the status of poetry globally and for the continuity and strength of Poetry Society of Tennessee. This time last year, we grappled with the society’s very existence—but with strong Board leadership, committed volunteers, and members willing to suit up and settle in for a potentially wild ride, our organization has proven resilient. 

    As I now work with co-Presidents Bill Hill and Calvin Ross to transition into their role, I am grateful they were willing to provide their leadership. They, along with my fellow Board members quickly and ably navigated a precarious situation and, I believe, effectively steered us into a more stable one. We stand now, poised to build upon both old and new aspects of our society.

    Our programs extend beyond member benefits: they fulfill our greater purpose to promote poetry and build a community of (current and future) poets. Our programs happen when people commit and bring them to life. I offer heartfelt thanks to fellow Board members, to committee chairs and program coordinators, to committee members, to contest sponsors and judges, to contest entrants and call-for-submission respondents, to program presenters and meeting attendees, to members who shared news of their achievements and poetry activities in their regions, to all who shared their poetry with us … and to friends of PST who shared poetry-related happenings and partnered with us in some way.

    In this spirit of gratitude, May’s program will include a brief ceremony to recognize and honor our volunteers in addition to our usual programming. We have so much to be grateful for about this passing year and so much to look forward to in the year ahead, so let us end one and  begin the next with a thank you.

    With gratitude,
Lisa Kamolnick
PST President-Elect

     

     

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  • Join us for 2023-2024

    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 help poets 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 here in Tennessee and beyond. 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 70th year: the upcoming program year runs May 2023 – April 2024. Ready to join or renew? Use this form.

    Got questions? Contact us using our website contact form or by emailing poetrytennessee@gmail.com.

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