Emily Rose Cole and B.J. Buckley Win the 12th Annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest Sponsored by Winning Writers
Northampton, MA (PRWEB) April 15, 2015 -- Winning Writers is pleased to announce the results from its 12th annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Emily Rose Cole of Carbondale, Illinois won the Tom Howard Prize of $1,000 for a poem in any style, for "Allegheny County, 1888: Ava Remembers Her Canaries". B.J. Buckley of Power, Montana won the Margaret Reid Prize of $1,000 for a poem in a traditional style, for "Insomnia: A Suite in Thirteen Hours". 1,338 poets competed from around the world.
Cole's quietly devastating narrative poem encompasses the oppression of a lifetime in half a page. Tasked with raising the canaries that signal dangerous conditions in the coal mine, a young girl learns too late that the harsh economy of her father's world has no room for a child's small act of compassion.
Like a tune that circles around and around in a sleepless mind, Buckley's richly detailed poem fugues on the theme of counting—first, sheep, of course, but also syllables, fallen leaves, stars, extinct animals, hairs on the beloved's head, and ghosts, to name but a few. Her meditations reveal how insomnia is linked to the fear of death and disintegration, yet the poem ends with the hope of waking to new abundance.
Martin Hill Ortiz of Ponce, Puerto Rico received a runner-up prize of $250 in the Margaret Reid Prize for "Two Mistakes". This epic poem in rhyme and meter takes its central conceit—two sets of separated twins—from "The Comedy of Errors" by Shakespeare, transplanted to the border between slave and free states in antebellum America.
Eleven Honorable Mentions of $100 went to Viola Allo (two awards), Claire Askew, Harry Bauld, R.G. Evans, Joanne Lichtenstein, Sian Lindsey, Glenn Morazzini, Jude Nutter, Aliene Pylant, and Eleanor St. James. The winning entries are published online at WinningWriters.com.
About the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
The Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest accepts original poems of any length. Both published and unpublished works are accepted. $4,000 in prizes will be awarded in the 2015 contest now open, including the Tom Howard Prize of $1,500 for a poem in any style and the Margaret Reid Prize of $1,500 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. For the purpose of the Margaret Reid Prize, a poem in a traditional style employs regular meter and/or rhyme, or is written in a recognized poetic form. This includes traditional Western forms such as ballads, sonnets, and blank verse, and Asian forms such as tanka and haiku. The deadline is September 30, 2015. The entry fee is $10 per poem. Guidelines and the online entry form are found at WinningWriters.com.
Contest judge Ellaraine Lockie is a widely published and awarded poet, nonfiction book author, and essayist. Her eleventh poetry collection, Where the Meadowlark Sings, won the 2014 Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest and was published in early 2015. Other recent work has been awarded the 2013 Women's National Book Association's Poetry Prize, Best Individual Collection from Purple Patch magazine in England for Stroking David's Leg, winner of the San Gabriel Poetry Festival Chapbook Contest for Red for the Funeral, and The Aurorean's Chapbook Spring Pick for Wild as in Familiar. Ms. Lockie teaches poetry workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, Lilipoh.
About Winning Writers, Inc.
Winning Writers was founded in 2001 by Jendi Reiter and Adam Cohen. We find and create quality resources for poets and writers. Our free email newsletter provides over 50,000 subscribers with profiles of the best free literary contests. We sponsor four annual contests of our own: the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest (no fee), the North Street Book Prize for self-published books, the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, and the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Learn more at WinningWriters.com and join our 44,000 followers on Twitter at @winningwriters.
Adam Cohen, Winning Writers Inc, https://www.winningwriters.com, +1 413-320-1847, [email protected]
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