Eye On Life Annual Poetry Contest 2014

Yes, we are doing the EOL Annual Poetry Contest again, though we got a bit of a late start this year.  Once again we will be offering:

• First prize, $100
• Second prize, $50
• Third prize, a book of poetry

Winners (and honorable mentions) will be published in the Poetry Locksmith feature at EOL.

In other news I had an absolutely wonderful time playing with the Temple Ohabei Shalom Shabbos band on Friday night, January 10, celebrating Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of Song, with guest artist Jonathan Gramling.  I love it when the musical and the spiritual mix so well.

Also it was an opportunity to play claves as well as trombone, and even sing a little.

Not So Dead

People speak of ‘the dead of winter.’  I suppose by this they mean the middle of winter, when the colors of fall have all been ‘whited out’ and the new greens of spring seem oh so far away.  Yet the winter is full of life.  In the woods there are chickadees looking for a handout, woodpeckers jackhammering for bugs and mice hopping short distances through the snow, on the lookout for weasels dressed in their white winter coats or red foxes wearing their usual fine attire.  Other life sleeps underground:  skunks, ants, fish, and others who hibernate the frozen months away.   We observe those earthbound who remain awake through winter by their tracks that the snow makes so plain to see.

I don’t know anyone who hibernates, do you?  I imagine that it is not beyond our capability.  There are many of us who can control our heart rate and respiration.  But no one actually does it, as far as I have heard.  Some of us migrate, like the songbirds, south to where it is relatively warm all season.  The rest of us dress in layers of clothing to keep ourselves warm outdoors and burn mostly fossil fuels to keep us warm indoors.  Sometimes I wonder how long we can keep that up.

But I don’t have to wonder about some things.  For example, I know I wrote a couple articles on hardware at Door Hardware Genius; I know that I wrote a song called ‘Crazy as Me’; and I know that I published several poems as editor of The Poetry Locksmith feature at Eye On Life Magazine.

Speaking of Eye On Life Online Magazine, the poetry contest will open for submissions on January 10th and will close on March 30th.  Winners will be announced in April which is, coincidentally, Poetry Month here in the United States.  I think that will work out well.