{"id":42348,"date":"2019-01-13T12:37:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T18:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=42348"},"modified":"2019-02-11T19:30:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T01:30:02","slug":"provo-poetry-contest-provides-prestige-prizes-and-poemball-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/provo-poetry-contest-provides-prestige-prizes-and-poemball-machines\/","title":{"rendered":"Provo Poetry Contest Provides Prestige, Prizes, and Poemball Machines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Among the Utah literary set, \u201csouth of the border\u201d can sometimes mean Utah County, but with its two major universities (Brigham Young\u2014think former poet laureate Lance Larsen \u2014 and Utah Valley\u2014think \u201csonosopher\u201d and performance artist Alex Caldiero<\/a>) as well as its robust independent lit organizations, you overlook it at your peril.<\/p>\n

Emblematic of that thriving bias for the lyrical is Provo Poetry, founded by local poets Trish Hopkinson and Marianne Hales Harding with the aim of instilling the love of poetry within the general community, bring poems to a wider audience, and support local poets. They sponsor the \u2014 now \u2014 annual Provo Poetry Contest, a chance for emerging and established Utah poets to get their poetry recognized and the chance for a little cash. The contest provides a reading at the Speak for Yourself Open Mic event at Enliten Bakery and Caf\u00e9 in historic downtown Provo, and distributes the works in their POEMBALL machines in Provo and Salt Lake City (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Launched in January, 2016, Provo Poetry\u2019s POEMBALL program uses gumball machines as poetry pushers where you can get your daily fix of Utah verse for a quarter. \u201cWe’re thrilled that the POEMBALL machines continue to raise enough funds to not only maintain the costs of materials, but also to provide cash prizes for our second annual poetry contest,\u201d Hopkinson says.<\/p>\n

In its inaugural year (2018), the contest yielded more than 500 entries from an impressive roster of Utah poets, including first place winner Michael Mortenson, as well as Rob Carney and Dennis Marden Clark, among others. This year, the contest is judged by current Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal. The tireless and prolific Rekdal, with her distinctive flair for making poetry and literature relevant in startling and enervating ways, brings a certain cachet to the contest. The deadline for submission is Feb. 1, 2019 (see here<\/a> for more details).<\/p>\n

As a special READ LOCAL feature, we present you with some of the acknowledged entries to last year\u2019s Provo Poetry Contest, including Mortenson\u2019s winning poem:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Your Essay, Define Greatness<\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

\u201cIf you grandstand,<\/h4>\n

you might still lose, funny man,\u201d<\/h4>\n

was never a saying, but Paul\u2019s grandfather<\/h4>\n

said it all the time.<\/h4>\n

Like a holy scripture.<\/h4>\n

Like the measure of our size against the sun.<\/h4>\n

Another was \u201cTime keeps running,<\/h4>\n

so better hug folks while you can.<\/h4>\n

Start with your grandfather,<\/h4>\n

leg it,\u201d by which he meant now.<\/h4>\n

Forty years as a mason.<\/h4>\n

This town<\/h4>\n

will stand for 200 more.<\/h4>\n

I\u2019m not smart enough to rocket off<\/h4>\n

to Jupiter, but I\u2019m not dumb;<\/h4>\n

I know how to listen.<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s a lot like watching with your ears,<\/h4>\n

while getting things done.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013Rob Carney<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

The Day’s Manna <\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

melting snow drizzles from the roof
\nan illusion of a mid-march rain
\ncoriander seed and orange peel fill the air
\nwhile mother is elbow deep in flour
\nher repeated efforts to wipe her brow
\nhave painted her Geisha-like
\nwith porcelain fingers and mindless motion
\nshe kneads like a potter
\nfourteen mounds inflate in baker’s time
\nthe day’s manna
\na cluster of rosemary stars and marjoram
\nencrusted in the bread of life
\nI know if I eat, I will be filled
\nbut the deluge of snow in the gutter spout
\nreminds me that every form no matter how celestial
\nwill fall to earth and expire
\na reoccurring wake in search
\nfor yet another morsel<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013Mike Mortensen<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sand-barite rosette <\/strong><\/h4>\n

(Oklahoma\u2019s official state rock)<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

This is how the desert, unhastened, blossoms<\/h4>\n

as a rose \u2014 petals in ruddy sandstone:
\ncrystals splayed about a sunken grief
\nforming in the bone-dry rock of ages.
\nEach persists as, all about it, crazing
\nstone returns to sand, till in the open<\/h4>\n

sun it blooms in positive relief, an outcrop of the earth\u2019s eternal loss.<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s this rosetta will instruct the plowman
\nwho in the next great age turns up our bones
\nto read the extinguished language of our love:
\nit grew in sand that rusted into silence,
\ndivergent clustered blades that cut against
\nthe grain of entropy, the drift of blood.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013Dennis Marden Clark<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the Utah literary set, \u201csouth of the border\u201d can sometimes mean Utah County, but with its two major universities (Brigham Young\u2014think former poet laureate Lance Larsen \u2014 and Utah Valley\u2014think \u201csonosopher\u201d and performance artist Alex Caldiero) as well as its robust independent lit organizations, you overlook it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":42349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/poemballs.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 00:43:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42348"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42591,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42348\/revisions\/42591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}