Schedule of Events
10:00 AM – 10:10 AM Business Meeting – Celestine Davis, Presiding
10:10 AM – 11:30 AM "Writing from the Broken Places" AE Hines, a reading and conversation with Rebecca Godwin
11:30 AM – 12:00 PM Open Mic – Regina Yvette Carter Garcia, Host – Have your poem handy!
12:00 PM Closing Remarks by Celestine Davis, President
AE Hines’s debut collection, Any Dumb Animal, received Honorable Mention in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s 2022 Brockman-Campbell Book Contest, and was a daVinci Eye finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book award. His poems have been widely published in anthologies and literary journals, including more recently: Rattle, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Rhino, Ninth Letter, The Missouri Review, Poet Lore, The Greensboro Review, and I-70 Review. His website is www.aehines.net.
Rebecca Godwin recently retired as Professor of English and Elizabeth H. Jordan Chair of Southern Literature at Barton College. As director of the Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center at Barton, she also coordinated the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series for eastern North Carolina for many years and enjoyed hosting the Walking into April Poetry Day event that NCPS co-sponsored. Her book Community Across Time: Robert Morgan's Words for Home will be out in April from West Virginia University Press.
Gilbert-Chappell Reading in Western Carolina
The first Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series reading this spring will take place at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee on Monday, March 20 at 12 noon in the Student Union.
The reading will feature Distinguished Poet Ken Chamlee and his four mentee poets. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome.
The Charles Edward Eaton Contest for Formal Poetry
Beginning with the 2022-2023 NCPS Adult Contest season, the Joanna Catherine Scott Contest will have a new name. An anonymous donor has endowed the contest to continue the theme of formal verse but with a request to rename the award for the noteworthy North Carolina poet, Charles Edward Eaton (1916-2006).
The newly named Charles Edward Eaton Award for Formal Poetry will open for submissions in November 2023. The entry must be a sonnet, sestina or other traditional form, limited to a maximum of 50 lines (including poem title, any epigraph, blank lines, and lines of text). Anyone writing in English is eligible to enter.
Eaton was the author of 17 books of poetry, beginning with The Shadow of the Swimmer in 1951 and finally The Work of the Sun: New and Collected Poems, 1991-2002 in 2004. He also published collections of stories, a play, and nonfiction.
Eaton received his B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina in 1936, studied at Princeton, and received his M.A. degree from Harvard, where he worked with Robert Frost, who later recommended him to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He achieved international recognition with the award of the Arvon Prize in 1981 and the Golden Rose Prize from the New England Poetry Society. From 1946-1952 he taught at UNC-Chapel Hill as professor of creative writing.
Charles Edward Eaton wrote of himself:
“Though I am resistant in general to definitions of poetry and poets as too limiting, if pressed I might admit to being a modern formalist, but I should insist on the importance of the qualifying adjective. I compose in a number of verse forms and write lyrical as well as dramatic poetry, but I do not lean on any poet of the past or present for technical inspiration. I believe that each poet must develop his own organic sense of form and adapt even the most conventional meter to his personal rhythm. For example, a number of my poems are written in triptychs, their long lines rhyming every other line, modulated in an entirely individual way. William Carlos Williams, in a study of my work, called this three-line stanza an Americanization of terza rima. Perhaps he felt it was very American in its love of freedom and yet somewhat European in its formal allegiance. There is no doubt that I like poetry that is both vigorous and controlled.”
Joanna Catherine Scott was an ardent supporter of the North Carolina Poetry Society for many years and sponsored the formal poetry contest until her health failed in recent years. She was a novelist and poet; her honors include the North Carolina Poet Laureate Award, 2002; Longleaf Poetry Award, for Birth Mother; Acorn-Rukeyser Award, for Coming Downfrom Bataan; Capricorn Award, for New Jerusalem; Americas Review Prize for Social Poetry; PEN/Nob Hill Poetry Prize; Black Zinnias Poetry Book Award for Breakfast at the Shangri-La.
Note: Image of Charles Edward Eaton (1916-2006) courtesy the State Archives of North Carolina, call no. N_70_11_186.
Monthly Craft Tip
Submitted by Joseph Mills
The difficulty sometimes in revising a piece is getting the necessary distance to make it unfamiliar. Time helps, but that’s not always possible (and writers tend to be impatient). One simple, yet effective, trick is to change the font. You literally will see the writing in a way that you didn’t before.
Years ago, as laser printers became prevalent, composition teachers began finding it more difficult to convince students to revise their papers. They theorized it was because the work simply looked too good. Whatever was written, if it was in Times New Roman, it looked akin to published. A beautiful font can make a piece seem set, particularly if it’s a font in which someone works all the time. So, before you send a piece out, change the font and look at it fresh.
Opportunities
Publishing a Book? Let NCPS Help!
By Regina YC Garcia, NCPS External Programs Chairman
NCPS External Programs wants to know…Do you have a book being published soon or are currently in your presale period? If you do, in which county do you reside?
Are you interested in conducting a reading and/or signing in anticipation of your book’s current or future release?
Please let us know, so that we can support you as an NCPS Literary Artist. Membership has its benefits!
If you have an event, opportunity, book launch, reading, craft tip or other news to share, consider submitting your information to be featured in eMuse. Submissions should be made by the 20th of each month to meet publication deadlines.
Members and non-members can submit their items to this Google form.
Events
Kakalak 2023 Poetry & Art Contest Now Accepting Submissions
Submissions Window: March 1–May 31
Award: Various Prizes and Publication
Fee: $10 to submit up to 3 poems or 3 art pieces
The Kakalak 2023 Anthology, published by Moonshine Review Press, will accept entries in poetry and art for the 2023 annual contest from March 1 to May 31. Judges: Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak, Angelo Geter, and David E. Poston. No set theme. Anyone is eligible.
Nexus Poets Welcomes New Women’s Voices Contest Winner on March 7
Nexus Poets of New Bern will host its March open mic, online, with Lynne Schmidt, an award-winning Maine poet. The open mic is on Tues., March 7, from 7 - 8:30 p.m. to sign up to receive the Zoom link, or to read your original poem after the featured poet’s reading, email Nexus Poets at nexus@nexuspoets.com.
Anyone who has been saved by the companionship of dogs will see themselves in the pages of Schmidt’s book Dead Dog Poems from Finishing Line Press.
Schmidt (preferred pronoun they) is also the author of Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) which was listed as one of the 17 Best Breakup Books to Read in 2020, and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. They are the winner of the 2020 New Women’s Voices Contest and author of the chapbooks, Sexy Time, the winner of The Poetry Question Chapbook Award.
Their work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor’s Choice Award, and was a 2018 and 2019 Pacific Northwest Writers Association finalist for memoir and poetry respectively. Schmidt started the project “Abortion Chat,” which aims to lessen the stigma around abortion.
Ruth Awad, author of Set to Music a Wildfire, says of Schmidt’s book DeadDog Poems, “Through the lens of her relationship with her pack, Lynne Schmidt examines family, trauma, abuse, and loss, recognizing her love for her rescue dogs, survivors themselves, as a constant in an otherwise chaotic and cruel world. This collection is a reminder of what a gift it is to belong to each other, even briefly.”
Schmidt, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, is a mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. Schmidt lives in Maine with three dogs and one cat.
The open mic event is sponsored by Nexus Poets, a collective which has promoted poets and poetry in Eastern North Carolina since 2014. All listeners and poets at all levels of experience are welcome.
Future Nexus Poets “First Tuesday” open mic Feature Poets
April 4 – Chris Abbate, author of Words for Flying
May 2 – Regina Yvette Carter Garcia, author of The Firetalker’s Daughter
June 6 – Kathy Ackerman, author of Repeat After Me
“Poetry and Mental Health” Workshop to be Held on March 11
Janet Warman will present a workshop entitled "Poetry and Mental Health" at the Sat., March 11 meeting of the Burlington Writers Club at Alamance Arts at 212 S. Main St, Graham from 10:00 until 11:15 a.m.
Janet will focus on how poetry has supported many poets, including Anne Sexton, in dealing with emotional issues. She will read her own poetry and lead those attending in a writing exercise focusing on difficult emotions. All are welcome, including BWC members and visitors.
Flyleaf Poetry Series and Open Mic is Back on March 12
Join Flyleaf Books, 752 MLK Jr. Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC, on Sunday, March 12th at 2:30 pm for their Poetry Series and Open Mic. Maria Rouphail (All the Way to China) and Chapman Hood Frazier (The Lost Books of the Bestiary) will read from their new books. An open mic will follow. Come early to sign up for the open mic, meet and reconnect, and browse the bookstore.
Mark your calendars for these Sundays: April 16, May 21 and June 11.
Malaprops to Host Hybrid Reading on March 12
Malaprops Bookstore, 55 Haywood St., Asheville, will host Poetrio, a monthly hybrid poetry event, at 4:30 p.m. on Sun., March 12. Featured poets for March are Chris Abbate, Joan Barasovska, and Anne Harding Woodworth!
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are available to attend the event in-store.
The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance. For more information or to register, click this link to visit the event page.
Yetzirah & the Yiddish Book Center Co-Sponsoring March 19 Translation Event
The translation event featuring Jennifer Kronovet & Aviya Kushner, with Merle Bachman & Maia Evrona will be held virtually on Sun. March 19 from 5 - 6:30 p.m. Registration is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, click here to visit the event page.
McIntyre’s Books Poetry Series 2023 - March 26
Come to McIntyre’s Books, 220 Market Street in Pittsboro on Sunday, March 26 from 2 - 3:30 p.m. for a monthly poetry event sponsored by NCPS. This month features Joyce Compton Brown (Hard-Packed Clay) and Les Brown (A Place Where Trees Had Names). Participants are encouraged to bring a poem for the open mic.
Joyce Compton Brown grew up in the rural community of Troutman, NC, in a family with deep local roots. A professor for a number of years, she is the author of Bequest, Singing with Jarred Edges, Standing on the Outcrop and, most recently, Hard-Packed Clay (RedHawk, 2022).
Les Brown has published poetry, visual art and short stories in journals, including Pinesong, Kakalak, Main Street Rag, Still the Journal, and Moonshine Review. A Pushcart nominee, Les lives in Troutman, NC. His chapbooks, Cold Forge and A Place Where Trees Had Names, were published by Redhawk Publications.
In the Company of Writers to be Held April 12
Please join us for the next installment of In the Company of Writers, live and in person at the Brandy Bar, 504 7th Ave E, in Hendersonville, from 6:30 - 9 p.m. on Wed., April 12. The featured poets will be Nicole Farmer and Kelli Allen.
Jimmy Anderson will entertain us with Chicago blues from 6:30 till 7:00 as the audience settles in. Then Farmer and Allen will read from their current books: Wet Underbelly Wind by Nicole Farmer, and Leaving the Skin on the Bear by Kelli Allen. Please check out their websites for more information on these creative women: https://www.nicolefarmerpoetry.com/ and https://www.kelli-allen.com/.
An open mic will will be held from 8 – 9 p.m. for those wishing to share their own stories and poetry, followed by another blues performance by Jimmy Anderson.
Intro to Poetry Workshop Slated for April 20
Published author Cheryl Wilder, president of the Burlington Writers Club, will lead “Intro to Poetry” from 6 - 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 20, at Alamance Arts, 213 Main St., in Graham. During this workshop, participants will get to play with language, evoke emotions, find connections, and create imagery. Intro to Poetry is a "no pressure" workshop open to ANYONE ages 18+ who wishes to become more engaged in writing. Participants are welcome to bring snacks and beverages (no red wine, please).
Cheryl Wilder’s collection, Anything That Happens, a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection (Press 53), received Second Finalist in the Poetry Society of Virginia Award and Honorable Mention in NCPS's Brockman-Campbell Award. Co-founder of Waterwheel Review and Burlington Writers Club president, Cheryl received the 2023 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Support Grant.
Kenneth Chamlee - The Best Material for the Artist in the World
The Best Material for the Artist in the World is a poetic biography that tracks the life and career of landscape artist Albert Bierstadt, whose 19th-century representations of the American west earned him wealth and international acclaim.
Relaying the story primarily through Bierstadt’s voice, these narrative, lyric, and ekphrastic poems touch the momentum of the developing west, the devastation of native tribes and great buffalo herds, and the resiliency of Bierstadt’s art in our time of environmental awareness and expansionist reappraisal.
Exposed Roots explores Croft’s personal love of nature, along with family heritage. He bridges patriotism and social justice. The themes of love and religion take us to final messages of hope and happiness.
Embracing his simple-poet style, Doug Croft writes what he knows and feels with depth, texture, and keen articulation. His poetry has been described as patriotic, minimalistic, and pointed.
The Firetalker’s Daughter is an offering, incantation, and invocation that taps into the physical and metaphorical power of fire. Through expressions of the inner self, Regina YC Garcia’s poems tap into the questions of reconciling fearsome nature with goodness and peacefulness, as seen through this divine element.
Scorching imagery and passion create wisps of smoke. Smoldering narratives become lightning bolts and poetic kindling igniting substantive undergrowth for a brighter day. The Firetalker’s Daughter invites the blaze that always illuminates the before time of far tomorrows.
Amanda Monath - This Is Like That: Poems and Process
This Is Like That: Poems and Process, by Mandy Monath, grew out of a series of conversations with an artist friend about the similarities between poetry and painting. This collection of poems is punctuated with reflections on the creative process that invite the reader to reflect on his/her own creative consciousness. Poetry happens. To the poet and to the reader. The effect, for both, should be roughly the same. Something remarkable happens. The poet forges that something into a poem capable of making it happen again for the reader. Maybe you dislike poetry. Some do. But it’s calling for you, like geese honking across the sky at sunset.
Kashiana Singh’s transcendent collection of poems Woman by the Door is a powerful journey between the liminal spaces that inhabit the bodies— physical, emotional, intuitive, spiritual, and divine, alive in Woman, as she stands “stubborn in the southeast corner of [her] body.” It is a soul’s poetic interrogation of the tender and flawed human self, the dweller on the threshold to higher worlds while navigating the boundaries that break form, “Living the moods of my 27 moons and/ Never having to explain myself before or after menopause/ I am a planet though; as every woman before/ I bleed myself hollow; I swallow my volcanoes.” Walk back and forth between these doors, and discover yourself on the vibrant threshold of your own transformation.
- Kai Coggin, author of Periscope Heart, Wingspan and Incandescent
The vestibule to experience is not to
Be exalted into epic grandeur. These men are going
To their work with this idea, advancing like a school of fish through
Still water—waiting to change the course or dismiss
The idea of movement, till forced to. The words of the Greeks
Ring in our ears, but they are vain in comparison with a sight like this.
The pulse of intention does not move so that one
Can see it, and moral machinery is not labelled, but
The future of time is determined by the power of volition.
Membership Reminders
NCPS Dues Scholarship Program
A member or potential new member can write to Joan Barasovska, Sr. VP of Membership, at msjoan9@gmail.com to ask about obtaining a dues scholarship.
Scholarships are funded by member donations. Confidentiality is central to this program. If you are on a limited income and paying NCPS dues presents a hardship, or you know a poet who would benefit from joining but is held back by tight finances, please write to Joan at msjoan9@gmail.com.
If you are interested in being added to the list of dues sponsors, write to Bill Griffin, ewgryphon@aol.com. You would not be asked to pay until a scholarship is requested.
NCPS Dues Reminder
Quarterly meetings, readings, workshops, contests, fellowships, publications, and collaborations keep the North Carolina poetry community connected and vibrant. We invite you to renew your involvement and take advantage of all that the NCPS offers its members. During this season of online meetings and readings we have continued our quarterly meetings on Zoom, allowing members from all locations, including out of state, to attend virtually.
While dues were once paid in May, we have converted to a simpler rolling system. The day your payment to renew membership is recorded will become your new due date the following year. Your due date is on the mailing label of your copy of Pine Whispers, the paper newsletter.
There are two ways to pay the $30 annual dues ($10 for students):
Pay by check (for mailing address click on link below for downloadable form);
PayPal, either in a one-time payment (no need for a PayPal account to use your credit card), or the easy option of an automatic annual payment with a PayPal account.
If you have questions about membership, please write to Joan Barasovska at msjoan9@gmail.com.
Copies of the 2022 Pinesong Anthology Available
If you would like to receive a copy of the newly published 2022 Pinesong, the anthology of winning poetry from the Pinesong Awards contests, please write to Joan at msjoan9@gmail.com. There will be no charge for mailing.
This offer is for members in good standing. If you're uncertain about your dues status, Joan can help you.
The North Carolina Poetry Society is an inclusive, welcoming community that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, political preference, or any other category that has been used to divide human beings from each other and the natural world. We value diverse voices and varieties of expression.
Review, Rhino, Ninth Letter, The Missouri Review, Poet Lore, The Greensboro Review, and I-70 Review. His website is 
