Poetry

Spring 2011 Poetry Contest

In honor of National Poetry Month in April of 2011, your Redwood Writers Club Chapter of the CWC is holding a contest. Winners will read their poems at our April meeting.

The deadline is over. Try again, next year.

Judges:

Gwynn O’Gara, Sonoma County Poet Laureate for 2010-2011

Gwynn is the author of three poetry collections: Snake Woman Poems from Beatitude Press, Fixer-Upper from d-press, and Winter at Green Haven, published by WordTemple Press. She teaches creative writing through the Sitting Room and has been a poet-teacher with California Poets in the Schools for twenty years. Her poems have appeared in CALYX, The Evansville Review, descant and the Beatitude Golden Anniversary Edition.

Terry Ehret, Poet Laureate 2004-2006 and co-founder of Sixteen Rivers Press

Terry Ehret is a teacher, writer, and co-founder of Sixteen Rivers Press, a regional poetry publishing collective. From 2004-2006, she served as poet laureate of Sonoma County where she lives and teaches. Her third collection of poems, Lucky Break. was released in 2008. Ehret’s poetry, essays, stories and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her poems have won several literary awards including the National Poetry Series, California Commonwealth Club Book Award, Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. See http://terryehret.wordpress.com

Toni Wilkes, poet and hostess of the Londonberry Salon

Toni Wilkes’s chapbook Stepping Through Moons (Finishing Line Press) was nominated for the California Book Award and the PEN USA Literary Award. Her forthcoming book, Black Water Beneath a Lid of Ice (Finishing Line Press) received honorable mention in the 2010 New Women’s Voices competition. Toni’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her recent work appears in Confrontation, Cream City, Hayden’s Ferry, In Posse Review, Southern Humanities Review and other noted journals. http://tonilwilkes.wordpress.com/

Poetry Contest Winners with Gwynn O'Gara

This contest was, in part, a celebration of National Poetry Month that occurs every April. It was open to all California residents. All submissions were previously unpublished works and they were judged on clarity, originality, and cohesion.

Winners were announced at the Redwood Writers – CWC general meeting held on April 11th. Almost 100 entries were received. The following poets placed in the contest:

First Place: Ellaraine Lockie of  Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County–”Wellspring”
Second Place:  Crystal Ockenfuss of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County–”After”
Third Place: Francesca Gonnella of Occidental, Sonoma County– “Hawaii”

Read the winning poems by clicking on the titles.

Honorable  Mention  was  awarded  to:

Deborah  Taylor-French – “Stone  Worship”
Jennie  Frost  Butler– “Enoch  Coming  from  the  Wars“
Crystal  Ockenfuss– “Elegiac  Wittenstein”