Island Senior: Entries now accepted for new poetry garden poems

Poetry garden at the Mullis Center – Photo credit: Peggy Sue McRae

If you have not expe­ri­enced Fri­day Harbor’s poet­ry gar­dens, you can find them at the Mullis Cen­ter, on Reed St. beside the U.S. Post Office, at the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre, and at Spring Street Land­ing below Down­rig­gers. The poet­ry gar­dens were cre­at­ed to bring poet­ry into our town’s dai­ly experience.

The gar­dens are a project of the Fri­day Har­bor Arts Com­mis­sion, togeth­er with a com­mit­tee of local cit­i­zens who estab­lished them in the spring of 2020. All res­i­dents of San Juan Coun­ty are encour­aged to sub­mit new poems for 2023. The con­test, spon­sored by the Town of Fri­day Har­bor and the Fri­day Har­bor Arts Com­mis­sion, will be held through Oct. 31. Win­ning poems will be announced in February.

Engrav­ings of the 30 win­ning poems will be on dis­play this com­ing year, replac­ing the ear­li­er win­ning poet­ry. A book of the poems will also be pub­lished for lim­it­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion. Copies of the win­ning poems from 2020 are avail­able for free by send­ing an email to Town Hall.

There is no entry fee, but entrants must live in San Juan Coun­ty. Win­ning poems in both adult and stu­dent divi­sions will be deter­mined by for­mer Wash­ing­ton State Poet Lau­re­ate and Seat­tle Civic Poet, Clau­dia Cas­tro Luna.

To enter, mail your poems to Poet­ry Gar­den Con­test, Town of Fri­day Har­bor, P.O. Box 219, Fri­day Har­bor, WA 98250 — or deliv­er to Town Hall at 60 Sec­ond St. The dead­line is Mon­day, Oct. 31.

Here is a sam­ple from the 2020 win­ning selec­tions — One Less Thing by Susie Fos­ter Hale:

This morn­ing
a small red dessert bowl
slipped from my hand and
smashed on the mar­ble counter –
a shock of shards, splin­ters of glass.
Free­dom some­times star­tles me.

View the full list of guide­lines for the 2023 poet­ry gar­den con­test.

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