The Oregon Poetry Association (OPA) is sponsoring the eighteenth annual Oregon Student Poetry Contest. Tiel Aisha Ansari of Portland, OR and Steve Jones of Corvallis, OR are the 2016 student contest co-chairs. All Oregon students, kindergarten through 12th grade, enrolled in public, private, parochial and alternative schools, and home schooled, are invited to submit a poem. There is no entry fee. The deadline for entries is February 8, 2016 (postmark).
Ten unranked winners in each of four age categories receive $10 cash prizes. All forty winning poems will be published in Cascadia: The Oregon Student Poetry Contest Anthology. Each winner will receive a certificate and a copy of the anthology. The ten winning poems in both the middle and high school divisions are eligible and will be sent to the annual Manningham Trust Student Contest sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NSFPS). This national competition also awards cash prizes and publication in an anthology.
Oregon students who have won awards in the national contest include South Medford alumnus Kylan Rice, whose poetry can be sampled online at Daily Dose of Lit and Softblow among others. Winning poems have also been featured in Chalkboard, the newsletter of the Oregon Council of Teachers of English.
Writing poetry to enter in the contest is typically a class project organized by teachers in the various types of schools. OPA urges parents and teachers to encourage students to enter the contest. This is an excellent opportunity both to encourage and to reward creativity in Oregon students.
A note for teachers, from Steve Jones, Co-Director, Oregon Writing Project Collaborative at George Fox and Co-Chair, Oregon Young Poets 2016 Contest:
COMMON CORE SUPPORTS POETRY READING AND WRITING
Jim Burke in his recently published “Common Core Handbook” maintains that teaching writing well will always demand that teachers and students read widely in all genres, write daily with peer and teacher feedback with opportunities for student revision–while using mentor texts from all genres, including poetry, short stories and essays. Burke teaches us how Common Core supports this wide reading and writing in all literary genres. National Writing Project research also tells us that when writers strengthen their writing in any genre, they strengthen their overall skills as writers. Writers are people who write and write and write. So, teachers, encourage your students to write in all literary genres, confident that they will benefit and become stronger and more effective writers.
Complete guidelines can be read below. A printed copy can be obtained by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to:
OREGON POETRY ASSOCIATION
1724 NE Prescott
Portland OR 97211
or requested by email, Tiel Aisha Ansari
The Oregon Student Poetry Contest serves to nurture poetic talent among young Oregonians by providing an opportunity for their poems to be widely shared and celebrated.
2016 Oregon Student Poetry Contest Rules
Poems accepted between November 1, 2015 and February 8, 2016 (postmark deadline)
Division I: Kindergarten—Grade 2
Division II: Grade 3—Grade 5
Division III: Grade 6—Grade 8
Division IV: Grade 9—Grade 12
Prizes: 10 unranked prizes in each Division, $10.00 each
Each of the 40 winners will receive a certificate and a copy of Cascadia: The Oregon Student Poetry Contest Anthology, in which all 40 winning poems will be published.
All winners in Divisions III and IV will be entered into the 2016 Manningham Trust Student Contest by the OPA Student Contest Co-Chair, Steve Jones. This nationwide contest, sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, also awards cash prizes and a publication furnished to Manningham Contest winners.
Oregon Student Contest Rules
- Submit one original poem (your own individual creative work) on any subject, in any style or form, with a maximum of 40 lines. The poem must be titled, except for haiku, senryu, or limerick.
- Type or word process your poem on a single sheet of standard 8 1/2 X 11 white paper, one side only, in a standard type face; no fancy fonts, graphics, or illustrations.
- Send two copies of your poem. ON THE FIRST COPY, in the upper right hand corner, type your category (I, II, III, or IV) and grade level, name, school, school address and phone number, and the name (first and last) of your writing teacher. Also on this copy, type, and sign the following statement: This poem is my own original creative work and has not been copied, in whole or in part, from any other author’s work, including poems posted on the Internet. ON THE SECOND COPY, type the category and grade level only—check to make sure your name does not appear anywhere on this copy.
- Mail to: OREGON POETRY ASSOCIATION, P.O. Box 1775, Corvallis, OR 97339
- The deadline is February 8, 2016 (postmarked).
2016 Oregon Student Poetry Contest Checklist
- The one best poem you are submitting is your own original work and no more than 40 lines
- Your poem is typed or word processed on one sheet of standard 8.5×11 white paper
- Your poem appears on one side of the paper only in a standard 12 point font
- You are sending two copies of your poem
- One copy has your poem & in the upper right corner, the Division (I, II, III, or IV), your grade, your name, your school, your school’s address and phone, & your teacher’s first and last name
- On that copy, beneath your poem, you have typed and signed the following statement: THIS POEM IS MY OWN ORIGINAL CREATIVE WORK AND HAS NOT BEEN COPIED, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, FROM ANY OTHER AUTHOR’S WORK, INCLUDING POEMS POSTED ON THE INTERNET
- On the second copy of your poem, in the upper right corner, you have typed only the Division (I, II, III, or IV) and your grade––with no name appearing
* (Optional) You have enclosed a stamped, self-addressed envelope to receive the Winner’s List
Writing Teachers and Students (K-12): Student Writing Prompts and Revision Strategies
Re-Seeing What We Write
When asking “What Next?” of a first draft, remember grandfather, Peter Elbow’s maxim: Our first draft is often only half there. Revision is the opportunity to grow and discover the missing half––often the half that makes our work fully present, complete and publishable.
1. Leave your work to cool for a couple days when possible and find multiple ways to read aloud for your own ear and for friends and family. Have them ask questions. What would they like to know more about? What has not been explored yet? What is unclear or confusing? What comes to mind when they hear your piece?
2. Write a second version from memory, recasting the piece, looking for new expressions and details. Then combine the best of both versions.
3. Look at your verbs and dump the “it is’s”, looking for vivid verbs and detailed, specific nouns.
4. What have you not said yet? If there is a touchy or delicate topic to be explored, do it. You don’t have to use this writing in the final draft, but Nat Goldberg cautions us that what is difficult to write about is likely important, unique and interesting.
5. Watch for ways to include several of the five senses in telling detail: touch/smell/sound/sight/feel and maybe intuition.
6. Read lots and lots of poems in little magazines, anthologies bound and online, looking for unique approaches, words and ideas to explore. This wide reading helps you understand the poetry genre and often can supply a missing or pivotal word that can expand your work in progress.
7. Apply the Strunk and White maxim: Like a machine, a sentence should have not extra parts. Watch for wordy constructions that can be boiled down to lively speech-like prose.
8. What images are featured so far? In other words, What are the visual pictures you paint in the reader’s head. List these. What additional pictures might be powerful?
9. Do some “Peter Elbow Looping” where you freewrite around the topic of your poem to discover new ways of seeing––What are you “prejudices” on this topic? What are your first and second thoughts when this topic comes to mind? Invent a conversation between advocates pro and con on this topic.
Vary the audience: younger, older, workers, teachers, experts. List things that are almost true about your topic. Freewrite as if you were someone else writing on this topic. Like all freewriting, you don’t need to believe in “looping” for it to work, for it to expand your thinking and ideas. Be reckless in your freewritten exploration.
Some Playful, Aggravating & Reusable Poetry Prompts
1. Things I’m afraid to tell myself
2. Ways of Oregon rain
3. I’m from a place where
4. Things Momma don’t allow
5. Things I’ve learned lately
6. Nerudian questions like––What truly sleeps in a riverbed?
Why is everything more beautiful underwater? Why do rivers
journey? How far can you travel downriver? Who is the river
murmuring to? What cleans and aerates you like rapids?
7. What’s hidden in the trance of high school?
8. How best can we share this ocean of air?
9. What of the silence around your name?
10.When is there a vortex of noise?
11.What is the simplicity of trees?
12.Being quiet and listening to breath
13.What is meditative for you?
14.What can night teach us?
15.Finding our way in the dark
16.Earth teaches her children . . .
17.Fall was in the air
18.Winter falls like a shroud
19.The warmth of wool
20.Slouching in mud
21.Hills dodge everywhere
22.This careless river
23.The reckless surf
24.Slow children at play
25.Meditation: Don’t even think about it
26.Walking perpetually changes the scenery
27.Hot winds discourage clothing
28.How dusty and barren Mexico’s inland womb
29.It’s better tomorrow/Mejores manana
30.Travel provides new perspective
31.Exchanging greetings with everyone I pass
32.Travel is unpredictable like me
33.A walk through the house through a child’s eyes
34.What good is a day?
35.“Absence” as positive and/or negative
36.What can a poem do?
37.A paradise of strangers
38.An ode to transitory things
39.In celebration of favorite foods
40.An ode to small objects
41.Seeing through the layers
Poems as Prompts
Finding poetry prompts in the captivating richness of poems: Use the following strategies to start your own poem drafts (notes for poems) in response to favorite poems, playfully finding poetry prompts in the captivating richness of poems by reading, reading, reading poems:
*Quick write all that comes to mind initially after first reading the poem title. Then read the poem and add your responses to this initial reflection toward your own new draft poem.
*Pick a favorite line or phrase for your draft title or use as a repeating refrain. Variation of above––pick a series of phrases (3-4), freewrite a few lines to each one and put the writing together for a draft poem with interesting leaps.
*Make a list of several favorite words from the poem and use them in your draft.
*What could happen next in the model poem? Quick write on this. What has not been mentioned yet in the model poem? Quick write other ways to see this topic.
*Copy the model poem out in longhand and watch how it’s constructed, underlining your favorite words and phrases to be responded to in your draft.
*Read the model poem aloud to fully savor the nuances of rhythm and sound, then find a way to develop a similar sound in your own work––possibly using a phrase from the model as a refrain, or repeating a question and/or statement throughout your new draft poem.
*What does reading the model poem make you think of––list the mind pictures and images that come to mind––write about these in a series of short freewrites and juxtapose these short passages together in a new poem draft.
*Use a favorite line from the model poem as an epigraph and draft a new poem as an expansion on this idea or image, always striving to see with new eyes.
*Re-vision: Begin several new draft poems, notes for poems, and pick your most interesting for revision and expansion. Re-read your drafts and watch for opportunities to add more vivid detail and images, knowing that first drafts are most often only half-written––only half there.
*By encouraging writers to find prompts in the poems they read, they accomplish two or more things at once––they are encouraged to read lots of poems, finding favorite phrases, words and ideas, and they always have an abundance of writing starts at hand––all the published poems in the world around them.
Please share your additional poems-as-prompts ideas: <[email protected]>.
- Questions? Contact: contest co-chair, Tiel Aisha Ansari