NC Poetry Society Spring 2005 Spring Meeting From Page THE NEWS INSIDE Saturday, May 21 to Stage… Weymouth Center 2 President’s message & Southern Pines A note from Contest Chair No, it’s not 3 Kathryn Stripling Byer 9:15 a.m. Registration and annual dues payment slam poetry Order lunch until 10:15 a.m. but on 4 Spring meeting May 21 Coffee and tea on the patio May 21 5 Election of 2005-06 winners officers and vote on 10:00 a.m. Business meeting of the NCPS Election/installation of officers revised constitution 2005 and by-laws Adoption of revised by-laws and constitution Adult and 6 Sam Ragan Festival Student 7 Poetry Day/Greensboro 10:20 a.m. Pinesong dedication Poetry Sharon Sharp Contests 8 Welcome, new members! take center 10:30 a.m. Poet Laureate and McDill Award 10 Endowment Campaign stage and read Sandburg Fest; workshops winners read their award- Lee Ann Gillen, Adult Contest Chair winning 11-13 Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series Student Contest winners read poems at our spring 14 Student Contest judges Margaret Parrish, Student Contest Chair meeting at 15 A poet-in-residence Noon Lunch Weymouth in experience Southern Pines 1:15 p.m. Adult Contest winners read 16-17 Webmaster update Notices; KUDOS ! Lee Ann Gillen, Adult Contest Chair see page 4... 18 Change in editors Poetry Society quiz May 21 Lunch instructions Request for reservations Kathryn 19 Brockman-Campbell Stripling Byer Book Award guidelines 195 Eclectic Cuisine will provide a box lunch for selected as 20 Officers & committees $8.50 (includes tax), or bring your own lunch. The box North Carolina lunch offers a choice of chicken salad or tuna salad sandwich, or vegetarian salad. Box lunches include Poet Laureate Please note contact information on back page potato salad, dessert and iced tea. To make your reser- see page 3... vations, specify the number of lunches and your choice and on page 5 of chicken, tuna, or vegetarian and send a check for the correct amount ($8.50 each) made out to: 195 Eclectic Cuisine (NOT the Poetry Society) to: Pat Riviere-Seel, On May 21 107 Maple Drive, Asheville, NC 28805. Election of officers Please make your reservations by MAY 6 and vote on revision of Advance payment is preferred, although you may pay constitution and by-laws $8.50 by cash or check on May 21 For information: [email protected] see page 5 or phone: (828) 298-5413 Spring 2005 North Carolina Poetry Society President’s Message — from Ann Garbett As I write this, daffodils are blooming through the sleet in Virginia, but by the time I see you again, spring will be in full blossom. That’s a good way of reminding myself—and you too, I hope—that our present actions plant seeds for the future. You know how it works—you send poems to the NCPS contests in the winter, maybe in the midst of the after- Christmas blahs; in May we all see the fruits of those plantings in our wonderful Awards Day festivities. And we make other plantings for the future, too. When people send contributions to the Poetry Society, if the money is not otherwise designated, it goes into a fund that builds an endowment for our programs. It’s a little like planting fall bulbs, but with this extra ele- ment: we don’t necessarily know how we will need to spend that money in the future, but we know our commitment to excellence in our programs will remain the same (and we know that prices tend to go up, not down) and so we plant today, looking forward to beauty—maybe surprising beauty—in a season to come. And we plant for the future in the Poetry Society’s programs that nurture young po- ets, from the student contests (and isn’t it fun to hear those young winners read at Awards Day?) to our newest seed bed—the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets program, which offers special mentoring to promising young writers. I believe that everyone who writes plants for the future, believing that art gives a kind of permanence to thoughts and experiences that would otherwise evaporate. And each person who helps the North Carolina Poetry Society, from contributing to programs to help- ing clean up after meetings, is likewise cultivating a safe place to grow poems. I think of Weymouth’s poets’ garden and of the young people and their teachers on Awards Day and of members reading at open mike and of the buds which are forming in the Distinguished Poets series—what a greenhouse we’re running here! Let’s keep it going. Plant deep. Write away! A note from Lee Ann Gillen, Adult Contest Coordinator The Poetry Society's Adult Contest has been closed and judged. There were 422 entries this year, with the Thomas H. McDill and the Mary Ruffin Poole Heritage contests gathering the most entries. The winners were notified in March and are invited to read their poems at the Poetry Society Awards Day meeting in Southern Pines on May 21. Thank you so much to all the entrants and to the judges who gave their time and effort to this contest. We look forward to hearing many of the winning poems read in May. Spring 2005 2 North Carolina Poetry Society Kathryn Stripling Byer appointed North Carolina’s Poet Laureate Members and friends of the North Carolina Poetry Society, as well as poets across the region, are celebrating Governor Easley’s recent appointment of Kathryn Stripling Byer as the state’s Poet Laureate. Byer, who replaces Fred Chappell, will serve a two-year term. “Being the public representative of the many fine poets in North Carolina is both a huge honor and a huge opportunity,” Byer wrote in an e-mail message to the Poetry Society’s Corresponding Secretary. “I welcome the opportunity and challenge to bring North Carolina's literary treasures to greater public awareness and encourage people to read more poetry and even try writing it themselves. Groups like the North Carolina Poetry Society will be among my topics of conversation as I travel around the state during the two years of my tenure. The impor- tance of language, of using it with care, precision, and passion, will be my theme, and my ex- amples will be taken from the treasure trove of North Carolina poetry.” Kathryn Stripling Byer was born in south Georgia, but feeling the call of ancestral voices who at one time lived in western North Carolina, she moved to Cullowhee to teach at Western Carolina University in 1968. She served as Poet-in-Residence there, as well as poetry instructor in the UNC-Greensboro M.F.A. Program for Writers. Her books of poems include The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest (Texas Tech University Press, 1986); Wildwood Flower (LSU Press, 1992), Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets; Black Shawl (LSU Press, 1998), winner of the Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Book Award; Catching Light (LSU Press, 2002), Southeastern Booksellers Book of the Year Award in Poetry; and Wake (Spring Street Edition, 2003). Byer is currently working on a novel. In addition to sending NCPS the message above, Byer selected this poem, which previ- ously appeared in poetryfish.com, for this issue of the Poetry Society's spring newsletter: Big Tease Little by little, the earth sheds her veils. Lets her white blossoms tremble. The river shakes out her blue shimmy and scrubs it to smithereens over the singing rocks, leaving her sunny side up, such a tease that I sway to her music as if I am Salome’s sister, and not an old woman who knows that the inkblot of sky on this page of my daybook will soon begin fading, because how can anyone, even Great Granddaddy Death, stay asleep amid so much awakening? Spring 2005 3 North Carolina Poetry Society 40 Years of Award-Winning Poems Celebrate on Saturday, May 21 by Pat Riviere-Seel Happy Birthday, Pinesong! of poetry and a fine book of poems. No fewer than six committees are involved in Any way you look at it, forty is one of conducting the contests and publishing Pine- those milestone birthdays, and this year song. NCPS is publishing the fortieth edition of The process began with 3rd Vice President our book of award winning poems. The pub- Margaret Parrish managing the Student lication – and NCPS – has come a long way Contests and Lee Ann Gillen chairing the in the last forty years. Poet Laureate and Adult Contests Commit- Our annual May Awards Day meeting has tee. Publicity Chair Kathy Ackerman become the best attended, and this year helped spread the word about the contests promises to continue that tradition. Student and Carolyn Norris and Joy Acey Frelin- Contest winners will read their poems in the ger found judges for the Adult and Student morning, along with the Poet Laureate and Contests. Former NCPS president Sharon McDill winners. The afternoon will be de- Sharp chaired the committee that selected voted to the winners of the other Adult Con- this year’s Pinesong dedicatee. tests. Pinesong editors Joanne Nelson and Ce- The NCPS annual poetry contests began as lisa Steele put in many hours working dili- a way of recognizing the best poems, and the gently to produce this year’s beautiful edi- first book of winning poems was published tion. Thank you all! in 1965. It was an “in-house” publication, produced by NCPS members on their dupli- Thank you to the 2004-2005 officers cating machines and named Award-Winning Each year’s elections bring the mixed Poems (AWP).