And our June Hall of Fame Poet is . . .

I’m proud to announce that this month’s Hall of Fame Poet is from my own hometown! Virginia (V.L.) Gregory is our top vote getter and so will wear the crown for the month of June. Congratulations, Virginia. Way to go for Springfield, Missouri! Obviously I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed your poem.

Steven Withrow and Liz Korba also did well but are ineligible to win again during this twelve-month period. Julie Krantz, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, and Cherie Geisler Neal also made a run at winning this month and I’m sure they will continue to grow their fan bases as we go along.

My thanks as always to everyone who participated in June as a poet, a reader, or a voter. Here’s to July and another bumper crop of poems inspired by one word.

And the word for July? What else? ITCH. Make you think of anything? I’m eager to see what your fertile minds scratch up.

I have more good news. We are getting quite a lineup of Guest Readers on tap for the coming weeks. Tomorrow you’ll meet Carol-Ann Hoyte. Ken Slesarik is up on July 7 and he’s followed by Wendy Singer on July 14 and Nancy Gow on July 21. Wendy and Nancy took Carol-Ann’s advice to send me a picture and poem. They all live in Montreal.

I hope many others will take Carol-Ann’s advice too!

Sometime soon we’ll have another Friday Featured Guest. As we speak, Charles Waters is at work on an interview. So we have plenty to look forward to this summer and we’ve hardly begun!

David

Coming attractions

REMINDER: TOMORROW NIGHT AT 10:00 CST IS CUTOFF FOR THIS MONTH’S POEMS!!

BULLETIN: We have some strong efforts this month by our young poets. They include Taylor McGowan, Rachel Heinrichs, Cecily White, Anne Fox-Strauss and Hope Murphy.

If you haven’t clicked on Young Poets Word of the Month, I hope you will go there soon and help these talented young poets celebrate National Poetry Month.

To all of our adult poets who have shared your work this month and in previous months, thank you, and I hope to see more of your work soon.

For those of you waiting patiently, Rebecca Dotlich will be my guest on Friday. Good news beyond this week includes my guest Steven Withrow, who will post his comments next Friday, April 30, and Charles Ghigna (Father Goose), who is slated for May 7.

Coming up this week

REMINDER: Time to vote for your March Word of the Month favorite adult and student poems. Tomorrow night at 10:00 CST is the cutoff. Congratulations to our leaders so far. Laura Purdie Salas and Jackie Huppenthal are tied in first place followed closely by Fahad, drj3kyll, DeLane Parrott, and Liz Korba (a previouis winner). Students are led by Colin Hurley with Anne, Josh, Victoria, and Fareid all tied in second place.

Make today and tomorrow count with your votes! Thanks.

Hello everyone. Here are some events to expect this week.

Tuesday, March 30: Poetry Tip #4 will be posted. I’ll discuss punctuation and capitalization plus how words and lines can be designed and/or arranged to help enhance the impact and underscore the intent of your poem.

Tuesday night at 10:00 CST we’ll cut off voting for the March Word of the Month Poems.

Wednesday, March 31: March Hall of Fame Poets will be announced and the word of the month for April will be revealed. You don’t want to miss that!

Thursday, April 1: I’ll post the biographical information about this week’s guest, Nile Stanley. Nile is an author, teacher, poet, and performer. You’re going to enjoy his appearance on Friday.

Also, if anyone wants to post an April Fools Day poem in the comment section, that’s the day to do it.

Friday, April 2: My guest Nile Stanley will present some remarks and also share a “digi-poem” with us.

It promises to be a busy week so I hope you’ll join us.

David