I’m excited to share that Encore 2025, the annual anthology of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, is now available. In contrast to my poems declined in this contest (most of them), “Once a Week at Unit 216 in Lemon Yellow” placed 1st in the The Maine Poets Society Award! (I received a couple of honorable mentions for other contests.)
This was my first 1st place in an NFSPS contest. I’m grateful to the judge who picked my poem among the slew of poems themed to the topic “On the Street Where You Live.” “Once a Week at Unit 216 in Lemon Yellow” channels a younger me living on Air Force housing in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s auto-fiction, based on real-life events with a few fictional details. (And for those of you who may wonder, the color of the housing units is factual.)
Among Friends
Even more exciting, a slew of fellow Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST), Florida State Poets Association (FSPA) and Alabama State Poetry Society (ASPS) poets appear in the volume as well. I’m thrilled to be in the company of
- Tennessee poets Connie Jordan Green, John Mannone, Russell Strauss, Johnathon Bennett, Jerry Buchanan, and Laura Gunnells Miller
- Florida poets Janet Watson, Cheryl Van Beek, Mary Ellen Orvis, Suzanne Austin-Hill, and Mark Terry
- Alabama poets Gurupreet K. Khalsa and Jerri Hardesty.
Get the full contest winner list, which also includes honorable mentions, here.
Where to Purchase
Encore 2025 is available on Amazon in paperback format. The anthology features the top 150 winning poems selected from more than 6,000 submissions.
Beyond Encore 2025
Want to explore more of my work? Browse my website, check out a selection of photographs on Fine Art America, or peruse this special women’s issue of Black Moon Magazine for more poetry and visual art, including contributions from fellow Poetry Society of Tennessee members.
Find some of my poetry here, including a link to SoundCloud, where I’m slowly populating published poems in audio format. Check out my recently published poem “Relapse” in the speculative lit mag Abyss & Apex (available in text and audio). You can read a heap of poems about peace and help orphans in Ukraine with a purchase of Sunflowers Rising: Poems for Peace, which includes my poem “This Poem is Not About Mars.”
Want to explore more poets? Check out the ever-growing Poetry Society of Tennessee bookstore here and see why we say #poetryisalive in Tennessee. Coming soon: the society’s latest edition of Tennessee Voices Anthology.