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Robyn Hood Black - children's author, poet, artist

Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - Howdy from Poetry Camp, and Haiku News!

September 29, 2016
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, workshops, conferences, haiku, contests
Click to see Henderson Haiku Award page.

Happy Poetry Friday!

I'm posting from Bellingham, Washington, where many of us are gathering for Poetry Camp at Western Washington University this weekend. Can't wait to catch up with poetry friends, and meet many others whose work I've admired for years. Friday night I'm leading a Found Poem Mixed Media Makerspace activity at the three-stories-of-awesome Village Books. On Saturday, I get to co-lead a workshop on picture books with Julie Larios!

As if this weren't enough poetry good news, I received news at the start of the week that one of my poems was awarded "third honorable mention" in the Haiku Society of America's 2016 Henderson Haiku Contest. Pinch me! I've posted as a picture above, but please click over to read the winning haiku and always insightful judges' comments. (This year's judges were Cor van den Heuvel and Scott Mason, so I'm beyond honored to have received an honorable mention.) My poem was:

wedding invitations
the press and release
of the nib

©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.

I'm also delighted to share links to award-winning haiku by names you'll recognize from my blog as shining haiku stars who happen to live in our Southeast region. Tom Painting took FIRST place in the 2016 Brady Senryu Contest, and Terri L. French was awarded second place in the
2016 HSA Haibun Award Contest. Congratulations, Friends!

The wonderful Karen Edmisten has the Poetry Friday Roundup today - Enjoy!
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Poetry Friday - OOPS - Student Winners from the United Nations International Haiku Contest coming in June...

May 14, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Student Poet of the Month, haiku, contests, Poetry

Oops...

Update: My apologies, but we needed to wait until after June 6 to celebrate the Haiku Student Poet of the Month writers who placed in the United Nations International School Student Haiku contest. Click here for the link!

Speaking of haiku, our own amazing master of haiku and soooo many other things, Diane, has rounded up Poetry Friday this week at Random Noodling. Thanks, Diane!

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Poetry Friday: Bicycle Poetry Contest and Thoughts on Spinning in Circles...

June 5, 2014
Tags: Poetry Friday, contests, Poetry, ponderings, art
“Six Degrees of Separation”
photo ©Stephanie Salkin. All rights reserved.


The wheel has spun around again – it’s time for the poetry (and art) contest that my friend and fellow poet Stephanie Salkin helps coordinate each summer down in sunny Florida. In fact, it’s the third annual bicycle art and poetry competition co-sponsored by the Flagler County Art League (FCAL) and the Gargiulo Art Foundation.

“This year, the theme has been expanded to include 'plein air' art which, in terms of poetry, would translate to the outdoors/scenery. A poem could be about bicycles or the outdoors or some combination,” says the entry form.

What kind of poem should you create? Stephanie responds:

“Write any kind of bicycle or motorbike kind of poem, perhaps a reflection from childhood, or, if that doesn’t move your gears, write a poem about the beauty of the world around you—paint it in words the way a painter of the outdoors would create it in brush strokes.”

Here’s the nitty gritty:

Theme: bicycles or the outdoors, or a combination of both.

Send an entry form and non-refundable entry fee of $3 per poem ($5 for two poems), to be RECEIVED by July 2, 2014. (Questions & forms? Call Stephanie Salkin at 386-693-4204 or email ssalkin@cfl.rr.com)

You may also drop off form and entries at the FCAL gallery in Palm Coast.

Winning entries will be read at the GAF-FCAL Bicycle/Plein Air Art Show Opening, Saturday, July 12, 2014, at 7 P.M. (NOTE: If you would like to participate in an 8:30 p.m. POETRY SLAM on Opening Night, the entry fee for that event--if you participate in the theme poetry competition, too—is $3. If you wish to participate only in the SLAM, the fee is $5.)

Cash awards will be presented for first through third place theme poems. (You do not have to be present at show to win.)

One of these years I’m going to have my act together to enter this contest. Seems I frequently pedal down the road to you-know-where with good intentions. For instance, I thought for sure I’d be settled enough in our new digs to enter a particular haiku contest, whose deadline just passed, - but, alas, I waved as it went by. This past year has taught me that in some seasons in our lives, we just need to cut ourselves a little slack.

In the span of the past 10 months, my family went from all four under the same roof last summer to hubby starting a job six hours away, oldest child off to her last year of college and youngest off to his first in different states, and myself dealing with paring down and packing up almost 30 years of stuff – and trying to get a rather quirky big rambling 70s house ready to sell or rent or something. We bought a small cottage in our new hometown of Beaufort, SC, in the fall.

I finally got myself, the few pieces of furniture that would fit in the new space, and our mostly geriatric menagerie over here to the lowcountry from Georgia this spring. Many, many trips – even after the movers came. [When I told my good friend Paula B. Puckett that half the time I don't know which state I'm in, she replied: "I know - you're in a state of confusion!"]

I just got back with the last load from the house this week (!). In the meantime, said oldest has graduated and has moved to a rental house to start grad school and her teaching career, and said youngest has decided to transfer colleges and will be moving to yet a different town this fall. (He just got here for the summer and an internship, though - yay!)

I have had to let many things slide in recent months, too often including making the rounds of Poetry Friday. What a wonderful community, though – it’s still here. Even when some of us have to skip now and then. I am so looking forward to settling into a (creative) rut from this new address.

Happy to report that my studio in an 1889 building downtown is almost unpacked and set up – well, the tornado décor is just in half of it at the moment, not all of it. There is light at the end of the tunnel of moving boxes! (I’ll share pix and a tour soon on my artsyletters art blog.)

Thanks to the folks who have come by here to visit sporadic posts in recent months, even when I couldn’t always reciprocate. The last year has felt a bit like that exhilaration (and hint of fear) one experiences while splashing in the ocean, and a huge wave comes. You know it’s going to knock you off your grounded feet, swirl you around and upside-down a little maybe, but you’ll eventually surface. For those balancing big life transitions, hold your breath a minute and give yourself a break! You’ll breathe again. And for those experiencing a more settled year, perhaps with time and energy to spare - pen a wonderful bicycle/outdoor poem and send it to Stephanie!

You can go glean inspiration from all the great poetry rounded up at Carol's Corner today - Thanks, Carol!
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Poetry Friday - Hide and Seek & Be Back Soon...

January 23, 2014
Tags: Poetry Friday, art, writing life, Poetry, contests, illustration, workshops, Highlights
Adventure hides in boxes, waiting for me to set up shop in my Beaufort, SC, studio!

Greetings, Poetry Peeps!


I'm heading into the home stretch of this gradual move from the north Georgia mountains to the Lowcountry (SC), so I'll just be waving and sending good vibes these next couple of weeks.

This weekend I'm squeezing in an all-day workshop for illustrators in Greenville, SC, with Highlights Art Director Cindy Faber Smith and prolific illustrator Tim Davis. I've met both of these fine folks at workshops before, and I know we're in for a treat. (And, years ago, I had a Hidden Pictures submission make it through a couple of rounds of revisions before it got the axe. It's about time to tackle these wonderful puzzles again!) I'll also get to take my wonderful daughter out for her birthday while in Greenville.. :0)

My also-wonderful hubby helped me move furniture and boxes into my new art studio space in Beaufort this week. During my whirlwind trip, I finished jumping through the business license/codes/taxes hoops to make artsyletters all official there. Can't wait to unpack and set up shop! More on that soon.


In honor of "Hidden Pictures," today I offer up this delightful poem by Walter De LaMare (1873-1956):


Hide and Seek

by Walter De LaMare


Hide and seek, says the Wind,
In the shade of the woods;
Hide and seek, says the Moon,
To the hazel buds;
Hide and seek, says the Cloud,
Star on to star;
Hide and seek, says the Wave,
At the harbour bar;
Hide and seek, say I,
To myself, and step
Out of the dream of Wake
Into the dream of Sleep.


I'll be playing some hide-and-seek with more back-and-forth travel in these next couple-few weeks. But I'll be back! In the meantime, enjoy all the great poetry warming up this cold winter. Today, please visit Tara at A Teaching Life for the Roundup. Next week (Jan. 31), Tricia's got it covered at The Miss Rumphius Effect. And Renee will keep the poetry flowing on Feb. 7 at No Water River. If I come up for air from the boxes, I'll try to join in - but if I'm treading water in Styrofoam peanuts, I'll see you on Valentine's Day! AND, be sure to check in then, as we'll be spreading the haiku love with our Student Poet of the Month. (As you've come to expect, here's another young poet who will blow your Valentine candy wrappers off!)

Finally, my friend Stephanie Salkin passes along that she's helping with another art and poetry contest for the Flagler County (FL) Art League, with the theme of "Art Inspiring Poetry; Poetry Inspiring Art" - and the deadline is looming! It's Jan. 29. Please contact her at ssalkin@cfl.rr.com for details!

Hope you find whatever you're seeking this week!
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Bicycle Lovers: Fla. Contest for Poets and Artists is for You!

June 4, 2013
Tags: Poetry, art, contests
From a 1998 (!) sketchbook ; Fripp Island, S. C. ©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.

I met Stephanie Salkin at my first Highlights Founders poetry workshop up in Honesdale, Penn., and I'm happy we've stayed in touch. Stephanie always has something fun going on, and she's very involved with a variety of creative endeavors in her home state of Florida.

She's chairing a poetry contest and asked me to pass along the information. There's an art contest, too - both on the theme of "bicycles." (I grew up in Florida, at least half of the time on a bicycle.) What a fun theme! The deadline is the end of this month, so get those wheels turning. Here's the scoop and contact info from Stephanie:

2013 Bicycle-Theme Poetry Art & Poetry Show

A bicycle-theme poetry competition will be held in conjunction with the Bicycle and Poetry Show inaugurated by the Gargiulo Arts Foundation (GAF) last July. This summer, the Flagler County Art League will co-sponsor the art and poetry event, to run July 13-August 3.

Both Hollingsworth Gallery and FCAL studio space will exhibit bicycle-theme art. In addition, winners of the bicycle-theme poetry competition will read their entries at FCAL during the opening reception, Saturday, July 13, at 7 p.m. (Judges will read aloud entries of those winners not able to be present.)

Copies of the poetry will also be on view in display books at both galleries.

FCAL’s Stephanie Salkin will chair the poetry portion of the event:

*Entrants may send up to three bicycle-theme poems: one poem for $5, three poems for $10. Checks should be made out to FCAL.

*Poems (any form) can be no longer than one page and must be typed in 12-point type. Please include three copies of each poem: two without your own name, only one with your name.

*Two qualified judges (TBA) will choose first, second and third place winners, who will receive monetary prizes and certificates, and two honorable mentions, which will receive certificates only, if the judges deem two poems worthy of such merit.

*All poetry entries and fees should be mailed to Stephanie Salkin’s attention at: Flagler County Art League, P.O. Box 352772, Palm Coast FL 32135-2772.

*In addition, a copy of each poem entered (including your name) must be emailed to Stephanie (ssalkin@cfl.rr.com) for purposes of display printing.

*Deadline for receipt of poems is June 30, 2013.

If you have any questions, you can call Stephanie at (386) 693-4204. Also, visit FCAL’s Website: www.flaglercountyartleague.com.
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