InterBoard Poetry Competition Update

Last week we received the announcement of September winners (chosen by Tony Barnstone) in the InterBoard Poetry Competition:

• In first place, “St. Louis Jim,” by Henry Shifrin
• In second place, “Saturday” by S. Thomas Summers
• A tie for third place, “Sheer” by Tom Watters and “sinkholes and illusions” by Dorothy D. Mienko
• Honorable mentions to Laurie Byro and Beverleigh Gail Annegarn

...and just today we’ve got the October winners (chosen by new IBPC judges Hélène Cardona and John FitzGerald):

• In first place, “Ache,” by Michael Creighton
• In second place, “Convalescence” by Antonia Clark
• In third place, “Debris” by Ashura
• And five (!) honorable mentions.

As seems usual recently, none of the poems we sent in to represent our About Poetry Forum was selected, but all the winning selections are worth reading.

We’re still sending poems each month chosen from the many, many pieces posted on our Poetry Forum — but this month we had only two entries:

• “An Endangered Species” by Melissa Resch (BostonArtist)
• “Mindfulness” by Brian K. Lynch (BebopPoet)

Both have served as our envoys to past InterBoard competitions, and we wish them both luck in the judging. While we await the judges’ decisions, the Forum poets are discussing whether or not to continue our participation in the IBPC. The About Poetry Forum is one of the original founding boards of the InterBoard Poetry Community, the nomination process gives readers good reason to reread and think about the stand-out poems that stream by our eyes in the fast-moving currents of the Poetry Forum, and both the collected winners and the archive of our IBPC entries over the years have evolved into excellent permanent anthologies. But if our Forum poets don’t actively participate by nominating and critiquing poems, our presence in the monthly competition will inevitably fade away. Stop by and let us know what you think.

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
Background information, poem links and book-buying links for current IBPC judges Hélène Cardona and John FitzGerald