Winners of the Dunn writing contest.

Friday October 15, we announced the winners of the Dunn writing contest in an event at the Dahl Fine Arts Center.  This was a contest co-sponsored by the Dahl Fine Arts Center in Rapid City.  We had a small but enthusiastic audience. I was very happy that we could make the awards in the gallery with the Dunn exhibit.

Category: 16 and Over

 

                1st Prize ($50) to Eric Lochridge for work May Street

                              

                2nd Prize ($25) to Leah Nixon for work Portrait of my Grandmother

                                

                3rd Prize ($25) to Betty Downs for work Dakota Dreams

                               

  

                Honorable Mention to Gavin Woltjer for work Nameless Creek                               

                Honorable Mention to Patricia Anderson for The Human story in Art

                             

Category: Under 16

  

                1st Prize ($50) to Rose Wingert for May Street, 1922

                                

                 2nd Prize ($25) to Emily Wingert for Canvas

                   
 

                3rd Prize ($25) to Miranda Marker for A Walk in the Woods

Watch for the winning entries here soon.

Thank you to the Dahl for the opportunity to work with them on this project. Thank you to all who participated in the contest and to all who attended the awards ceremony.

                               

Fall Poets coffeehouse November 5, 2010

As always, please sign up to read at the event.  Call 394-4171 to pre-register or sign up when you get to the library.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Winners for the Dunn Writing Contest announced tomorrow

The winners for the Dunn Writing Contest, sponsored in partnership with The Dahl Arts Center, will be announced tomorrow in the Adelstein Gallery at the Dahl. Under 16 category winners will start at 4:30 and will be followed by the 16 and over category around 5:15. Hope to see you there.

Dunn Writing Contest

Media Advisory

For Immediate Release: 8/24/09

For more information:

Victoria Ledford

(605) 394-4101 x212 or x200

victoria@thedahl.org

-or-

Jason Walker

(605) 394-6139 x2243

JWalker@rcplib.org 

Who:  All Ages, FREE and open to the public

What:  Dunn Writing Contest

When:  Contest deadline Oct 8 @ 4pm

Where:  The Dahl Arts Center’s Senator Stan Adelstein + Lynda Clark Gallery at 713 Seventh Street (across from the library)

Why:  To highlight and encourage creative writing in our community and showcase the artwork of Harvey Dunn.

Dunn Writing Contest

Feeling creative?

We're looking for writing that is inspired by one of these elements:

•   Art in South Dakota

•   Animals in Art

•   Landscapes

•   The Human Story in Art

The Dahl Arts Center and High Plains Writers invite you to participate in a writing program inspired by the artwork of Harvey Dunn. 

A total of $200 is available for the most creative writers in two awards in each of two age groups.

Inspiration is FREE! Participants can enjoy free admission to the Dahl galleries to view the Harvey Dunn | Selected Works exhibit (just mention you are visiting as a contestant) or refer to images on the Dahl website at www.thedahl.org or visit highplainswriters.blogspot.com for complete contest info.

Young authors are encouraged to participate. All entries will be divided with special awards for youth participants. 

Contest Deadline Oct 8 @ 4pm

Contest Rules

1. Authors are limited to one entry per category.

2. All forms may enter - essay,  poetry, short story, etc - with limitations:

          a. Entries may not exceed 2 pages.

          b. Poems should not exceed 75 lines.

3. Authors are required to indicate whether they are 16 and Over or Under 16 on each entry.

4. All entries must include contact information on the right corner of the first page.

5. Submit entries by Oct 8 to: jwalker@rcplib.org

          or Rapid City Public Library

          attn: Jason Walker

          610 Quincy Street

          Rapid City, SD 57701

6.  Judging performed by High Plains Writers and Dahl Arts Center appointees and is not subject for review. Awards ceremony will be held at the Dahl Arts Center on Oct. 15 from 4:30 - 6:00pm

Dahl Arts Center | 713 7th Street | 605.394.4101| www.thedahl.org

The Dahl Arts Center is a municipal facility and receives support from the Rapid City Arts Council, City of Rapid City, Allied Arts Fund, and the South Dakota Arts Council through the Department of Tourism and State Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

*****************

Late Summer Contest

In cooperation with The Dahl Arts Center, we will soon be announcing a great new contest with monetary prizes, and there will be a youth division this time - something that we have not always been able to provide in our contests. Details should be finalized by the end of the week and advertizing will go out then.

Winners from 2010 Juried Poetry Awards

1st prize: Prairie Dark by Marcella Remund
2nd prize: Racing for the cure by Janice Mikesell
3rd prize: Eve’s beatitude by Eric Lochridge
Honorable Mention: Gertrude Johnson
Honorable Mention: Aisle twelve: a tale of grocery store romance by Jacob Herrmann

Video presentations will be coming shortly on HPW's youTube site.

So, yesterday I was reading the books section of Huffpost..

...and I saw this column about poetry.  It looked interesting and I started reading. Pretty soon, I knew I had to send it to the group for discussion. It was originally posted at The Poetry Foundation.

This Land Is Your Land

David Biespiel

Poetry Magazine

In the squares of the city--in the shadow of the steeple

Near the relief office--I see my people

And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'

If this land's still made for you and me.

America's poets have a minimal presence in American civic discourse and a minuscule public role in the life of American democracy. I find this condition perplexing and troubling--both for poetry and for democracy. Because when I look at American poetry from the perspective of a fellow traveler, I see an art invested in various complex, fascinating, historical, and sometimes shop-worn literary debates. I see a twenty-first-century enterprise that's thriving in the off-the-beaten-track corners of the nation's cities and college towns. But at the same time that poetry's various coteries are consumed with art-affirming debates over poetics and styles, American poetry and America's poets remain amazingly inconsequential to the rest of the nation's civic, democratic, political, and public life.

This divide between poet and civic life is bad for American poetry and bad for America, too. Decade after decade, poetry slips into its fifteen-hundred-copy-print-run oblivion and scattered identities on the Internet, and we hear not one chirrup about it from the leading thinkers or writers who have access to a dialogue with the greater public. The culture-consuming audience that should provide poetry's best readers has scarcely noticed its diminishment. Or if they have noticed, they have also come to feel excluded, unconcerned, and dismissive because they believe that American poetry has become so esoteric that figuring out the differences among the warring poets and styles is wholly unnecessary for leading a culturally rich or civically engaged American life. (read the rest here or here.)

I found this a very interesting article and I hope that we can discuss it here.  I think this is a valid question although, in  my case, political poetry leads to bad poetry.  I have been so angry about politics and when I am angry, I write very bad poetry.  I keep trying to get past so much anger toward a simmering that might be productive and then some idiot congresscritter says something else that is so inhuman that I lose my mind again.

I do think that political poetry has been/is very important to any culture and ours, since we seem to have so little culture left, needs something to enlighten.

Not you at this hour

No one knows why
It isn't here and it isn't now.

Can we thank ourselves for that?

Somewhere tragedy is in progress, we don't have to have that.

Tomorrow is already stronger.


This disaster is mine, this hour is all me
but I want it just the same.

Hello all, High Plains Writers and the Rapid City Public Library will host a winter poetry reading this year. The Dark of Winter Poet's Gathering will be January 22 at 7 pm at the Rapid City Public Library. Please contact the Reference desk to sign up to participate in this reading.  We have had many requests for a third reading for the year so we hope that there will be much interest in this event.

Poet's Coffeehouse this Friday, November 6...

The Fall Poet's Coffeehouse will be at the Rapid City Public Library Friday, November 6 at 7 pm. Call or stop in to put your name on the list to perform.

We hope to see you there.

In the meantime, the White House has put up videos of a poetry jam held there in May. Check it out here.

Poets Wanted

We had some interesting times at the SD Festival of the Book in Deadwood. I hope that Jason or Guille might write something about it. I plan to write something later.

But what I wanted to get posted, before I forgot, is that we have a date for the Fall Poet's Coffeehouse at the Rapid City Public Library. Come join us on November 6 @ 7 pm. There will be a sign up sheet at the Library before the date. Please sign up and plan to join us.

Poet's Coffeehouse and poetry contest awards videos available online

Sorry this has taken so long. The videos from the poetry reading and poetry contest are up on the Rapid City Public Library's youtube site. See them here. They are all labeled Poet's Coffeehouse 2009. We had another great night of poetry. Enjoy.

Poetry Contest moves forward

Last night, April 15, we held the judging meeting for the 2009 HPW Poetry contest. It took several hours and much beer to finish the judging. When we get down to the end, there is always a long discussion about which poem deserves which place. Since first place does mean a bigger cash prize it makes a difference. I have to say though, that I am never thinking about the money but whether I believe a particular poem really deserves the place that we are discussing. All of the other judges are thinking the same thing because we argue about the merit of the poem. So, yes, I know who won but I'm not talking. If you want to know who won, join us Friday, April 17 at 7 pm at the Rapid City Public library, 610 Quincy, Rapid City. If you want to participate in the reading, contact the library.

We will announce the winners and make the awards at the Poetry reading. After the Poetry reading, the awards and the readings of the winning poems will be available on our youtube channel as well as the Rapid City Public Library's youtube channel. This does not happen overnight. It takes time to edit the video and get it posted. You could always subscribe to one of the two channels and then you will know for sure when the videos are available.

Join us, either in person or online, and start working on your poem for next year's contest.

8th Annual HPW Poetry contest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 6, 2009

Call for Submissions

The High Plains Writers will sponsor a poetry competition this April with cash and prizes totaling $100. The deadline for submissions is 4 pm MDT April 13, 2009.

Submissions may be sent by mail to:
Rapid City Public Library

attn: Jason Walker

610 Quincy St.
Rapid City, SD 57701

Submissions will also be accepted electronically if sent to
jwalker@rcplib.org
.

The work to be considered should be included in the body of the email. Submissions sent as attachments will be considered only if they can be easily opened. It is up to the contestant to determine what can or cannot be easily opened. Submissions that are sent as attachments that do not open, open poorly or contain questionable file extensions will not be considered for the contest.

The requirements of the contest are: Each poet may submit a single poem of 35 lines or less in any style. Any submissions in excess of either rule will not be considered.

Judging will be done by members of the High Plains Writers.

Winners will be announced at the Spring Poets Coffeehouse held at the Rapid City Public Library on Friday, April 17th at 7:00 p.m. The Coffeehouse will feature poetry readings by those who sign up. Poets who wish to read their works should sign up at the Reference Desk at the Rapid City Public Library beginning in April. Winners of the 8th Annual HPW Poetry competition able to attend will be asked to read their winning works. If the writers are not available, the winning poems will be read by members of High Plains Writers.

Welcome to the High Plains Writers of South Dakota

This is the inaugural post for the group. Future uses of this post include posting our winners as well as communicating our works with others. We will also add film of poetry readings and activities sponsored by the group.