Poets & Writers Magazine Turns Forty
Founded in 1970, Poets & Writers Magazine has been providing essential information to - you guessed it -p poets and writers for forty years.
Poetry Contest Winners to be Announced
Winners of the first annual Eye On Life Poetry Contest will be announced next week on February 23rd or 25th.
We enjoyed an eclectic and wonderful assortment of entries and we will be hard pressed to select the winning poem. But we will. All winners will be published here on Eye On Life. The first prize winner will receive $100 and publication. The second prize winner will receive a gift crate from Zhi Tea and publication. Third prize winners will receive publication.
Thank you to all entrants. It was a pleasure reading all the entries.
We hope next year even more poets hop on board and enter the contest. Contest entries are accepted from November 15th through January 31st.
Regular poetry submissions are accepted year round.
Kazue Watanabe
Kazue Watanabe is originally from Japan. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works in a software company. She spends her spare time writing poems and essays, which are usually based on her experience living outside of her native country.
Read Kazue’s poem, What makes me happy is nothing real in a real sense
Slam Charlotte! at Erskine College
Christopher Shawn Barker
Erskine College contracted Slam Charlotte! to perform a mock slam open to students only. It was interesting because it is a Christian school and we were EXTREMELY limited with what we were able to say. (To give you some idea, REveLATIONSHIP was deemed inappropriate because of the “I settled into the role of taker like an undercover cop turned junkie” line. My Jigsaw piece was deemed inappropriate because of the tone. (And on and on…)
So, needless to say the majority of us had only a handful of pieces that were venue appropriate. It was a traditional three round slam so I went there with the bare minimum three poems and ended up tied for first and had to do a tie-breaker piece. I had nothing left and ended up having to perform the first poem I ever wrote…and won. lol
The kids loved it and said it was the best show they’d had in the four years they’d been there. Most of them had never been to a poetry slam. Good times!
Watch out for Chris’s new CD, “Mujician”
Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition of words/thoughts - there is the poetry. A poem can take a thought like a complex rock embedded with jewels and show it to you from different angles, producing meanings that spike off like rays of light in unpredictable directions. Opportunities: Every word presents multiple opportunities when juxtaposed with another word.
Cindy Vine
Cindy Vine, mother of three kids, author and teacher currently resides in Tanzania at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. She has traveled extensively and lived in 9 different countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
Cindy is the author of Fear, Phobias and Frozen Feet - a self-help book about breaking the pattern of abusive relationships in your life, Stop the world, I need to pee! and The Case of Billy B.
All her books are available on Amazon.
Helen Lewis - Featured Poet, February 6th, 2010
Helen Lewis immigrated to USA from UK, where she had a therapy and writing business. Helen has had over 340 stories and several poems published. Her background training is in Counseling, Hypnosis & Psychotherapy. She has four sons.
Read Helen’s poetry:
Not for the Faint of Heart
I asked for some sick and twisted Valentines Day poems from my friends. I confess I was unprepared for the literality of their response. Nevertheless, there were some printable ones. Following are selected Valentine’s from my friends, and one from me, too.
Send Me a Damn Valentine's Day Poem
Eye On Life is seeking Valentine’s Day Poems to publish the first two weeks of February. Now, you know we don’t want to see any NORMAL Valentine’s Day poems, no roses are red, violence is blue stuff. Send us some good stuff. Send us stuff that will make us never look at Valentine’s Day the same way again.
See submissions form at right.
Thank you.
EOL Poetry Contest Deadline January 31st
We have a good number of quality entries to the Eye On Life Poetry Contest at this time, but odds are still good for entries to win or place in this competition as of now. Remember that entries must be received by January 31st, 2010.
Click ad at right for details.