MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
OPA Spring 2019 Contest Opens January 1st
Deadline:
March 1, 2019Submissions
open: January 1, 2019
Limit: one poem per category.
Spaces between
stanzas do not count as lines.
1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will be published on the OPA website and in
OPA’s annual anthology, VerseweaversCategories
Limit: one entry per
category.1) Poet’s Choice:
Limit 80 lines, any subject, any form. Judge:
John Sibley Williams.2) Members Only:
Limit 20 lines, any subject, any form. Entrant must be a current OPA member. Judge: José Angel Araguz.3) New Poets:
Limit 30 lines, any subject, any form. A new poet is someone with no more than
two poems published in online or print journals. Self-published work is
not considered published in this context. Judge: Stella Beratlis.4) Traditional
Form—Ghazal: 10–40 lines, ... Read all of this item.
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: February 2, 2019
Klonopin Meets Sisyphus – New Chapbook by Adam Levon Brown
The Oregon Poet, Adam Levon Brown, is having a chapbook of poems being published by Weasel Press (Texas) titled, “Klonopin Meets Sisyphus”
You can stay up to date with the book by visiting https://AdamLevonBrown.com
“Adam Levon Brown’s new book Klonopin Meets Sisyphus is an amazing display of true vulnerability. Brown, who I ...
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
Before Dreaming: Poems by Arn Strasser, reviewed by Gigi Cooper
Before Dreaming
by Arn Strasser
Budding Branch Books, an imprint of Asher & Merriman Publishers
ISBN# 978-0-9841874-1-6
2015, 89 pp., $19.95
www.buddingbranchbooks.com
Before Dreaming almost is correct; Between Dreaming would be accurate. Arn Strasser’s collection investigates the interaction between the dream state and wakefulness. He approaches the enigma of the dream world with both wonder and dread, exploring the boundaries between living and dead, youth and age, adventure and solace. Without magniloquence, he takes the reader on a journey from as close as the dining room and sofa to the markets and shores of Sardinia.
For Strasser, sleep is not a separate condition, but a way to access both memories and the future. Dream and memory inextricably intertwine in the book, most literally in the penultimate set of poems
called “The Wanderers.”
- Night
… so we may wander
the landscapes
of our dreams … .
these constellations of our
desires, a twilight of
remembrances.
- Awakening
… Do you hear
voices
of the dead,
who speak in memory … .
In ... Read all of this item.
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2018 Fall Contest, Theme – Harvest, 1st Place Winner
November 20, 2018the mountain in the evening
by Brad Canfieldmy grandfather had a black mountain and he picked asparagus in his garden just in front of the mountain he pulled each stalk from the dirt with his thick dirty fingers and dropped it gently into an old coffee can shunk. shunk. shunk. each stalk was a like piece of the evening because the sky grew darker as he picked and i think he looked like he was coming up out of the soil while he picked and i also think he looked like he was growing out of the soil and into a mountain
Judge’s comments
In three readings of this set of poems, my first choice never changed. The winner, “the mountain in the evening,” caught me with its simplicity, brevity, and a powerful transformative metaphor balanced on the word because. This in a five-line prose poem with the moody feel of ... Read all of this item.