MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
OPA Spring 2021 Poetry Contest
Read all of this item.OPA Spring 2021 Poetry Contest
Contest dates: February 1, 2021 to March 15, 2021
Categories
Please remember that if you are not a current member of OPA you must submit your entries through the non-member Submittable portal in order for them to be accepted.
Limit: one entry per category (no duplicates).
1) Poet’s Choice: Limit 80 lines, any subject, any form. Judge: John Morrison.
2) Members Only: Limit 20 lines, any subject, any form. Entrant must be a current OPA member. Judge: Colette Tennant.
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 chapbooks and collections count as previous publication. Judge: Clemens Starck.
4) Traditional Form—Dizain: A dizain is a form of poetry consisting of ten lines rhymed in the a b a b b c c d c d format and in iambic pentameter, any subject. Judge: John Sibley Williams.
5) Theme—Emergence: Limit 40 lines, any form. Judge: Rachel ...
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: February 15, 2021
“Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska” by Katie Eberhart
“Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska” by Katie Eberhart has been published by University of Alaska Press as part of the Alaska Literary Series. “Cabin 135” is available through independent booksellers and from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, University of Alaska Press, and University of Chicago Press. —Please support local ...
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.