Tonight, on the Hotline with Dennis Price, the following 30 for 30 poets will appear along with me in a per-recorded broadcast:
Gail Giewon
Susan Notar
Derek Kannemeyer
Robert Wynne
Tune in a 8 PM EST:
In Fairfax County on Fairfax channel 37
or the internet at http://www.fcac.org/radio-fairfax
It’s Greek to me.
Find out on Monday, May 16 at 6 PM
What’s better than an evening of poetry? An evening of poetry with souvlaki and home made rice pudding. Throw in a little baklava and you’ve got yourself a fine evening.
Please join me on May 16 for a reading from my new book, Let’s Call It Paradise. I’ll be reading along with Tracy Dimond, Olesker, Alvarez and Cadafy at the wonderful Karella’s Cafe in Greektown in Baltimore.
Be there or be….
Thank you everyone for participating in this year’s 30 for 30 challenge. Our judge, David Anthony Sam, remarked that “the quality of the poetry was high,” and that he had a hard time choosing a winner. Nonetheless, he has selected a First Place winner, who will receive a one year subscription to our sponsor Potomac Review, as well as two poets for Second and Third place. He has also chosen three honorable mentions.
First Place: Derek Kannemeyer for “Two Sleepwalkers”
Second Place: Robert Wynne for “”Earthquake on Amaranth Avenue”
Third Place: Kindra McDonald for “I Do(e”
Honorable Mentions
Gail Giewont for “None of This Exists Except Absence”
Susan Notar for “Swinging in the Big Easy”
Luisa A. Igloria for: “The World, like a Lover, Asks for Another Chance “
Thank you everyone for contributing your wonderful poems. And thank you to Potomac Review for once again sponsoring 30 for 30.
Until next year,
Mike
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Love on Imaginary Boulevard No lonely pedestrians strolling, not one. Baking bread on the early morning breezes. Sounds of the ocean nearby, soothing rhythms Scent of plumeria, all tension fading. All hugs are welcome, warm, happily gifted. Little free libraries on every corner Children, comfortable here always, always. We would amble through bright sunflower houses. Footfalls easy on the feet, silent, gentle Treasured memories set the ambient temp Every tear a testament to steadfast faith Copyright 2022 Linda Trott Dickman
Bio:
Linda Trott Dickman has walked this road many times. She began in the High Sierras and brought it to the sandy shores of Long Island, New York. Come walk this boulevard, and help make it real.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Love on Imaginary Boulevard The letter arrives in her mailbox on a sunny day in April, that cruel month mixes winter and spring: cold rain on bright daffodils. I’d like to tell you she tears the envelope flap open, breeze blowing magnolia leaves, perfume scent mixing with honeysuckle but she presses the sealed letter to her heart, waits until she’s alone, hours later, bedroom door locked. In blue on the back flap: Regional Jail, her sister’s words already read by guards. “I love you. Please send cash and perfumed shampoo.” Copyright 2022 Kathy Cable Smaltz
Bio:
Kathy Cable Smaltz’s poems have been published in numerous journals and her poetry collection, Pieces, was published by Piedmont Press.
A VCCA creative fellow, she served as Prince William County’s Poet Laureate from 2016-2018.
Married for 25 years, she and her husband have a son in college and three teenagers.
THERE IS NO mortar for grief
THERE IS NO mortar for grief. Never. Honest, pure
sunlight thru mutins. Clinic windows. Children’s ward.
During childhood in hospital, I’d imagine:
A Boulevard where kisses were exchanged evenings
Over the Hudson River. Polio, Long
Summer. Brandy-light. Tug boats, hot paks: join
My bridge, ethereal, trapping fireflies in
Sun. Beginning to mortar, my mortal twelfth
Year: I’d imagine cartwheels, brook-leaps, tree-climbs:
I’d take a shoestring to my hair: read papers:
Tiltable fades: escarpments: imagined air.
Copyright 2022 Lynn Strongin
Bio:
Born & raised in New York City, Strongin began as a musician and emerged as a poet in the sixties in Berkeley. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. 12 books, work in forty anthologies, she now lived in British Columbia.
(Note; In summer 1951, a child of twelve, I caught the polio virus. Various healings were used: one was the tiltable in which the child’s body was laid flat and tilted toward a standing position: a few more degrees each day. My imaginary bridges, boulevards, dreamed me out of paralysis into leaping brooks as I had done the summer before.)
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Eros Rebuffed When Johnny Germaine went strolling down the street, the ladies looked at him in speculation: “Who is this man, so handsome, so suave, so neat? What’s his name, his marital situation?” Yet Johnny’s eyes were set on one, Sweet Molly, whose alabaster form brought him joy each day. But she was cold, and so his suit was folly, all of his ardor wasted and blown away. So success for John was never in the cards. He’s doomed to walk the virtual boulevards of fellows hoist by their amorous petards. Copyright 2022 by Conrad Geller
Bio:
Conrad Geller, now awash in hendekasyllables, is a retired sonneteer.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Special Kinda Sunflower Sunflowers, Sunflowers, blue skies, my bright eyes. Rainbows show just how beautiful life can be. Giving Sunflowers, you can feel all that’s real. Sunflower Sunflower, cheek to cheek, kiss me. Jeweled framed stop signs, vibrant decorative post. Pretty Queen, Handsome King, feelings forever. Fun, frolic freedom, two hearts of gold unite. Skipping, twirling, dancing sweet Boogie all night. Sunflower blessings fill lonely hearts with glee. Bouquets of Sunflowers enlighten our fun. Happily sashaying amidst golden sun. Copyright 2022 Sylvia Beverly
Bio:
Sylvia Dianne Beverly, “Lady Di,” is an Internationally acclaimed poet, presenting poetry In London, England, at the Lewisham Theater. A collection of her work is housed at George Washington University’s Gelman Library, Washington, D.C. Ladi Di celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Maryland State Poet Laureate and Host Grace Cavalieri, reading on her show “The Poet and the Poem” at the Library of Congress Experience. She is “Poet of Excellence 2020″ for Prince George’s County
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Imaginary Boulevard
night falls like rain in the curve of late season strangers coo under eaves where old songs are sung forgotten their homes, abandoned all reason conversant now only in strange whispered tongue trysting on Imaginary Boulevard here fingertips trace syllabics onto skin triangle, trapezoid, obelisk and ring the scent of crushed bergamot, lavender tea she brings his cupped hand to the shell of her ear listens, listens … is that the cry of the sea? its turgid farewell and its crystal salt tear
Copyright 2022 by Josephine LoRe
Bio:
Josephine LoRe’s words have been read on stage and in global zoom-rooms, put to music, danced, integrated into visual art, and published in 11 countries and 4 languages. She is a first-generation Canadian of Sicilian descent grateful to live on the traditional lands of the Piikani, Siksika, Kainai, Tsuut’ina and Nakota peoples, their ancestors and their descendants. https://www.josephinelorepoet.com/
330 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
