Guest Blogger: Poet Janet Clare Fagal and Two Opportunities for Poets

It’s Poetry Friday hosted today by the amazingly creative and prolific Irene Latham Here. Thank you, Irene! This week, I turn my blog over to guest blogger, Janet Clare Fagal, with a poetry opportunity that I know will interest many here on Poetry Friday.

Here is Janet:

Thank you to my friend, Janice, for the opportunity to guest blog today. Janice and I have been lucky attendees at Highlights workshops with Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlitch, and were roommates at NCTE’19 in Baltmore. It has been great getting to know her better!

I have two poetry opportunites to share with you.

FIRST, as past president and the current treasurer of the Central New York Branch of the National League of American Women here in snow country near Syracuse, NY, I would like to invite you to attend a Zoom presentation by poet, educator and creator of Metaphor Dice, my friend, Taylor Mali. It is Feb. 9 at 6:30 pm EST.

Here’s a Twitter post about one of Taylor Mali’s previous presentations. Maybe you’ve heard him before. He’s particularly well-known for his poem “What Teachers Make.”

So how do I sign up? Email me, Janet Fagal, at cnypenwomensignup@gmail. I will be in touch with further information.

We now have 500 spots in the Zoom session. I am planning to share a recording of the session with those who can’t make it.

Description of the presentation: Sometimes we need to be given permission to change the details of our memories so that they create better poems. Sometimes we need to be told that certain lines just don’t work in poems even if “that’s how it was.” Taylor Mali discusses memory, telling stories, and poetic license.

This all came about when our Branch of Pen Women was awarded a community grant from the CNY Arts Council to bring Taylor to our area to share insights and ideas on poetry. The grant also included some of our Pen Women poets working with area students. Taylor teaches a lesson to those students via Zoom (recorded).

SECOND: Taylor is sponsoring The Golden Die Poetry Contest + Anthology using the words from Metaphor Dice. There will be one adult winner who will receive $1000. In addition many poems will be selected to appear in the anthology. The student winner receives $500 and sets of Metaphor Dice. ALL who enter the contest will be considered for the contest!

Complete GUIDELINES to the Golden Die Poetry Contest are HERE

You don’t have to own Metaphor Dice to enter. The list of all the words for you to see, and hopefully use, is HERE .

Good luck should you enter the contest and I hope you will. As a level 1 judge for students (blind review) I am not eligible to enter but hope to see some of my wonderful Poetry Friday friends in the anthology.

Janet Clare Fagal