MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2021
Read all of this item.It’s almost time for the fourth annual Poetry Box Chapbook Prize.
Submission Period: Feb 1 – 28, 2021
First Prize:
$500 and 10 copies of their published chapbook PLUS distribution of their winning chapbook to ALL contest entrants.
Second Prize:
$100 and 5 copies of their published chapbook.
Third Prize:
$50 and 5 copies of their published chapbook.
This year’s judge will be Annie Lighthart. The contest is open to poets residing within the United States and the winner will be announced in July. All guidelines and details on how to enter can be found at:
https://thepoetrybox.com/the-poetry-box-chapbook-prize-2021
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: December 8, 2020
“Dear Captor” by Gina Williams published by The Inflectionist Review
I’m honored and humbled to join creators from around the world in the most recent edition of Oregon’s own “The Inflectionist Review” (Issue 11) with my poem “Dear Captor.” Thank you to editors John Sibley Williams and A. Molotkov. https://www.inflectionism.com/11/gina-williams/1
See the full issue here: https://www.inflectionism.com/issue11
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
This Swarm of Light reviewed
Read all of this item.Reviewed by Paul Telles
This Swarm of Light by Suzanne Sigafoos
I-Beam Books (2020), 65 pp $16
ISBN #: 978-1-938928-10-9
Available at: https://shop.spybeambooks.com/product/this-swarm-of-lightIn her first full-length collection, Portland poet Suzanne Sigafoos delivers on her book’s title with an enchanting swarm of poems that moves fluidly through a garden of themes that include mortality and the joys to be found in nature and art. Published in 2020, This Swarm of Light consists of 43 poems sorted into three sections that offer illuminating perspectives on each theme while introducing new topics and concepts of their own. The result is a loosely autobiographical meditation, focused more on emotions and insights than personal history.
Although This Swarm of Light does not follow a strict narrative arc, the thematic center of the collection comes in the middle section, titled “Bloodlines,” that chronicles the unique story of Sigafoos’s recovery from spinal surgery while she cared for her mother ...
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2020 Spring Contest Winners: Poet’s Choice: 1st Place Winner
June 3, 2020Baby, It’s Cold Outside
(a Vivianne sonnet variation)
As embryos we each explore the wall
of womb that holds us. It’s the first place joy
is felt—mom’s heartbeat like a lullaby.
Cocooned in touch, that’s how we interact.
We’re chastised just as soon as we can crawl
or walk. Just look! Hands off! That’s not a toy.
We’re told to view, to listen, smell that, try
a taste of this—but touch … and hands are smacked.
And so begins our isolation. All
those inhibitions finally destroy
instinctive comfort found in touch, deny
the core of who we are. Our lives contract.