Our Forum’s Envoys to the April IBPC

Despite our last-minute pleas, the Forum poets have been pretty silent about nominating poems for the monthly InterBoard Poetry Competition, so Poetry Guide Margy Snyder stepped in and selected a couple of her favorite poems posted during the last month to fill out our three entries for April. All the poems representing our Forum this month have a metaphysical aspect:

• “My Dead Relatives” by Tim J. Brennan (68degrees), nominated by writeagain as a “beautiful, poignant poem, stirring in its simplicity.”
• “Their Places,” a mysteriously cryptic but powerfully evocative piece by T. Obatala (trkyounger).
• “Two Places” by Lily Chan (Blissbuddha), a whimsical, sly yet serious epistolary poem on meditation, materialization and longing.

Kudos and luck in the judging to all three poets! We have a new judge beginning her term this month: Patricia Smith, famed slammer & performer, ousted journalist, teacher and author of our 2006 book of the year. For those of you who want to get more familiar with her and her work, we’ve posted a page of links. We’ll be back to report as soon as we’ve received her winning choices.

In the meantime, please remember that we are relying on you, dear readers, to keep the IBPC nominations coming! Whenever you see a great poem posted on our Forum, no matter where it is, come to the InterBoard Poetry Competition folder and nominate it! There are so many postings on the Forum that your Poetry Guides need your help to sift out the worthy entries at the end of each month.

Related resources:
About the IBPC
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
April - June judge, Patricia Smith