Tag Archives: Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest

Contest Winners and Reading — Coming Up

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Just a quick note to say that the winners of the annual Naomi Cherkofsky national contest have been chosen, but the judge needs to get the names and contact info — always a secret — which the contest chair has to pull together. So, we’ll keep you posted.

Then, everyone should join us at the Beverly Public Library on Saturday, April 26, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for a celebration of National Poetry Month, with readings of the winning poems followed by an open mic. Light refreshments will be available.

See you then!

Annual Poetry Reading date and time change!

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Life is full of changes. So, the North Shore Poets’ Forum has a little change to announce. The annual Poetry Reading in celebration of National Poetry Month that features readings by winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest followed by an Open Mic is from the third Saturday in April to the last one. That’s April 26, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at the Beverly Public Library.

I have been a sleepy, lazy, cold lady this winter and haven’t posted much. Still am. But, here’s a little poem by Billy Collins to give you — and me — hope. (Note: WordPress does not allow all poetic formatting! So, I have an ellipse to indicate stanza breaks.)

TODAY

By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
…
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
…
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
…
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
…
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
…
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
…
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
…
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
…
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Share your favorite poet

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Bring along some poems by your favorite poet to share with the group at our meeting Saturday, Oct. 19, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library. Add a few words about the poet and the reasons you think he/she is so terrific. We had intended this agenda for last month, but then changed it to a Seamus Heaney retrospective given his recent demise. It was a great meeting, and I expect the next one will be, too.

I will bring Mary Oliver (I think) and Roberta said she was going to bring Elizabeth Bishop. Of course, I mean their poems, not their bodies, although that would be a kick. One (quiz time: which one?) is not with us anymore, but given the onset of the Halloween season (it is a season in Salem), it might work. (Just kidding.)

At our September meeting we also outlined an agenda for the rest of the formal Forum year.

November 16: Write a poem about thankfulness. If you can’t write one, bring one by another poet to share.

December 7: Joint meeting with Mass State Poetry Society. This year we will have a special Tribute to Althea Adelheim, one of our founding members who died this year. As usual, we will have lots of good food. We will also have a Yankee Swap, gifts in the $5 range, with the Most Apt Poem contest sponsored by the North Shore Poets’ Forum. To participate, you simply write a poem to describe the swap gift you are bringing. You do not sign the poem or swap gift package. A judge will determine which poem was the best description of the swap gift, and the winner gets $10. It’s always fun!

January 18: We are stretching our poetic muscles and writing poems in forms. In addition, bring another form poem by an established poet to share.

February 15: Mary Miceli will lead a program on rhythm, using the rhythm of music as an easy route to understanding. You might consider bringing in the sheet music, or simply the words, to one of your own favorite songs.

March 15: Even though St. Patrick’s day is right around the corner, Melissa and I (Cathryn) are ignoring that great day and presenting a program on the Imagist poets.

April 26:  Annual National Poetry Month celebration with readings by the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest followed by an Open Mic.

May17: Poems of Place. Bring, write, explain.

Anyone who was at the September meeting who has a different recollection of the decisions made regarding the agenda, please let me know.

Thanks!

Naomi Cherkofsky contest winners

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The results of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest  are in, and we are very excited to share them with you. We do hope any of you who entered and are not on this list know that all of us have not been on some list or other! It doesn’t mean you are not terrific. Please know that we would love to have you join the winners to share your poetry during the North Shore Poets’ Forum’s annual celebration of National Poetry Month on Saturday, April 20, at the Beverly Public Library, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is always an entertaining time.

And now the list:

1st Prize   Carol Seitchik – “Tel Aviv: Meandering Back”

2nd Prize   Clemens Schoenebeck – “Resurrection”

3rd Prize   Sally Clark – “One Loose Screw”

Honorable Mentions:

1HM   C.H.Coleman – “A Mother’s Moment”

2HM   Clemens Schoneback – “Old Dog”

3HM    Ms. Phyllis Hodge – “Blizzard in the City”

4HM   Peter McDale – “Almost Spring”

5HM   Alan Swartz – “In the Dream there was a Card Game”

6HM   V. G. Bisaillon – “A Partly Blocked View”

7HM   Richard Samuel Davis – “Waiting for Deer at the Island Refuge”

We invite our winners to come to our celebration to read their poems. After they read, we have an Open Mic. Lots of people join in, and we all have a great time.  Please try to make it!

Poetry plans made for upcoming year

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A small group met at the Beverly Public Library on Saturday, Sept. 15, and we’ve come up with a schedule and some of the programs for the year, which follow. However, we didn’t want to exclude anyone who wasn’t at the meeting from a chance to volunteer for a program. Therefore, we have a coupd of unplanned meetings for you!

There was some talk about presenting a program for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, which is scheduled this year for Ma 3-5. It won’t conflict, as it did last year, with our Poetry Month Reading in April, which is good news. And, therefore, Mary Miceli suggested that we might want to find a few members of the Massachusetts State Poetry Society, of which our group is a chapter, to do a program for the festival. She suggested the topic be on Aging, although she had more of a transitions theme in mind, and aging in all its age groups.

As just one chapter, we didn’t feel we could make any definitive decisions and voted to bring the topic up at the Mass. State meeting coming up this Saturday, Oct. 6.

So, back to the NSPF schedule. We always meet at the Beverly Public Library, at 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Everyone is asked to bring a food item or beverage to share. The date is usually the third Saturday, but it can change. See below:

Oct 20: Melissa Varnavas will present a program on line breaks.
Nov. 17: Volunteer needed.

Dec. 1: Holiday Party, with the whole Mass State Poetry Society. NSPF sponsors the Most Apt Poem contest, which goes to the person who has a poem that best describes the present he/she brought for the Yankee Swap. Poems/presents are unsigned. The winner must fess up! And, it’s all in good fun!

Jan. 19: Need a volunteer.

Feb. 15: Mary Micelli will do a program, TBA.

March 16: Diane Giardi will do a program, TBA.

April 20: Celebration of National Poetry Month, with readings by the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Contest, followed by Open Mic.

May 18: Volunteer needed.

June 15: Annual Outing.

Poetry galore this weekend

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I do hope you will join us on Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Beverly Public Library for the annual National Poetry Day reading.

I can’t remember how many years the NSPF has been holding this event, during which we invite the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest to read, followed by an Open Mic. In any case, it is always a great time! We serve a few goodies to complement the very good poetry and friends who attend. So, I hope you’ll make sure to stop by.

But, it is a big weekend for poetry! The Massachusetts Poetry Festival begins Friday and goes through Sunday afternoon, in Salem, at a number of venues. Check out the link on this page to see what you might like to attend — so long as you are sure to come to Beverly, too!

Next year we might coordinate with the Poetry Festival folk and become part of that event (what do our members think?), or we might make sure to hold our reading on another weekend so that we can help animate National Poetry Month with lots of verse all month long.

If you can’t wait to the weekend this year, however, the Tin Box Poets are having their celebration on Thursday night, April 19, 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Swampscott Public Library, 61 Burrill St.  Doors open at 6 p.m. for open mic sign ups. You can even do music, if you prefer, but bring your own instrument.

In the meantime, you can see all kinds of poetry online. For instance, there’s the Borzoi Reader Poem-A-Day, distributed by Knopf Poetry right to your e-mail during this very special month (http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?reason=ignore&rs=1.

And, I will share a little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay for your reading pleasure.

 

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 

 

And, the winners are…..

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We are excited to announce the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest and invite them and you to our annual reading in celebration of National Poetry Month, on Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library.

They are:

1st. “Poem for Hilda,” by Catherine Stavrakas

2nd. “A Night-Time Long Ago,” by Yamilee Craven

3rd. “Let My Soul Blossom Like the Night Blooming Jasmine,” by Richard Samuel Davis

Honorable Mentions, in no particular order, are:

“Jack’s Pumpkin,” as well as “Revelations,” both by Diane Giardi

“Walking in the Arboretum,” as well as “The Commuter,” by Mickey Coburn

“Azure,” by Lee Lewis

“On a Budget,” by Johanna Maria Donovan

“Aftertaste,” by Megan Ouellet

“Going,” as well as “Storm,” by Catherine Stavrakas

We will first hear our winning poets read and then open it up to others in attendance. This annual event is always a lot of fun. We have light refreshments, and we encourage socializing as well as good poetry!

Please join us at the library, and tell your friends and family, 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Let’s celebrate National Poetry Month!

Beware the Ides of March

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Today’s the day we should look for betrayal, as in poor old Julius Caesar’s story, since this is the anniversary of the day Brutus took a dagger from his cloak and joined his fellow Senators to stab his emperor – his friend – in the back.

But, we don’t have to as troubled by ancient fates as all that! It’s a not too shabby March day here in Massachusetts, with promises of better ones in the days ahead. So, we should celebrate the anticipation of Spring rather than cower with the fear of Spring’s betrayal….something that happens all too often in these parts. A late snow storm is not uncommon. Rain, chill, and gray days often accompany the forsythia and daffodils. Forget that! This year will be perfect!

So, to get you in the mood, I offer a lovely poem by Peter Davison (1928-2004), from his 2000 collection, “Breathing Room,” which won the Massachusetts Book Award. But first, I will clarify something in my last post. Our Poetry Reading celebrating the Naomi Cherkofsky contest winners and National Poetry Month will be Saturday, April 21, 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m., at the Beverly Public Library. (The April 14 date was just a mistake, and the library is already booked for some other event that day, so there’s no choice.)

On with the poem, The Level Path, by Peter Davison

The Level Path

Descend here along a shower of
             shallow steps past the potting shed with
                           its half-rotted ironbound door

to reach the level path. It winds
             northward, high hat, girdling
                           the waist of a limestone cliff

beyond earshot of the clamorous village below. The
             squeezed access bears us vaguely along
                           shifting digressions of the compass, past

eye-level seductions of violet, periwinkle, primrose, and petals
             like lisping yellow butterflies. Naked limbs
                           of beech, haggard liftings of pine,

a hairy upthrust of cedar beside a
             curving stone bench, all hint at eruptions
                           into Eros. Yet another seat displays

a cushion of undisturbed luxuriant moss around its clefts and
             edges. Thick harsh leaves
                           of holly, ivy, even of palmetto

thrust up, pathside, between tender new petals,
             while other friendly shrubs reach down
                           from overhead to fondle our faces.

There is no escape from the dreadful beauty of
             this narrow path. It leads nowhere
                           except to itself and
                           the black water below.

It must be Spring!

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The weather is beyond belief, and Spring is in the air. We can now look forward to the pot of gold that the Leprachauns are hiding, as well as spring flowers and showers and blooming good days ahead.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Naomi Cherkofsky contest. As it turned out, and despite my worries, we have a good supply of poems. We will notify the winners by e-mail or phone or snail mail. Everyone else should look here for a listing.

Also, we hope everyone will come to the reading at the Beverly Public Library, 11 a.m., in celebration of National Poetry Month. It’s always a lovely time. I have it down in two different places — once as April 14 and another as April 21. Shall we take votes? (Crumb. I’ll check with the library. I’m thinking it should be the 14th because the Massachusetts Poetry Festival has many good offerings on the 21st.)

In the meantime, don’t forget our March meeting, on Saturday, March 17. Member Chris Coleman has promised us a program on Irish poetry.

Until then, bask in the sunshine!

Enter the Naomi Cherkofsky contest!

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I have just rewritten the following poem, a habit I have, so that I almost never think my poems are finished. But, if you have the same habit, stop it! Send in that poem — or the other, or even the other — to the annual Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial poetry contest! And, tell your friends to do so, too. (Click the poetry contest tab of this blog for the info.)

Many of you have come to the annual reading, held the third Saturday in April, and you know what a great time we have. The winners of the contest read first, followed by an open mic. Please spread the word. It’s a sad truth, but newspapers are no longer spreading the word the way they did in the good old days. Readership is way down, and they are grappling with survival.

We need you, therefore, to tell everyone about the contest.

Here’s the poem I was telling you about, which has actually been published in a Mass State Poets anthology in a slightly different rendition. I’m sure you can do better! Pull out your pens, your computers, your thinking caps, and get going!

Dusk in Winter

By Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

 

The sky – blue, white.

The ground, etched in black macadam.

The houses cramped by

the big mall and the little malls

that grew up nearby.

……..

Still, the twiggy branches of the trees

surge

and the crisp clarity

of the ebbing day

pulsates with a swirl

of black birds billowing

in a pointillist arc,

alighting on a naked

maple, swooshing

up suddenly as though

the winter god shook them

off its solemn simplicity,

tickled them into replays

of their aerial vivacity

……..

While in the west

the sun blushes madly

in a last attempt

to brighten the day

…….

and the birds flock,

and flock again

before hiding somewhere

in the star-struck night.