April is National Poetry Month. That designation seems especially pertinent in Asheville, a town steeped in verse. Native son Thomas Wolfe composed poetry. The National Poetry Slam was held here in 1994 and the local team won that competition in ’95. Last year, Slam Asheville Youth competed in the international Brave New Voices youth poetry slam. Poetry is alive and well in local reading series, school programs and published works by writers both established and up-and-coming. Speaking of published work, Asheville Poetry Review celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — an impressive milestone.
Asheville Wordfest is readying its website for its 2014 event. Poetrio returns to Malaprop’s in March, and Majo John Madden and Tracey Schmidt will present an afternoon of poetry and music at Jubilee! in April.
To celebrate all of that (and more), Xpress has a special poetry feature in the works — and we want your poems.
To participate, please send your haiku, tanka, cherita, epigram, lanturne, naani, cinquain, sijo, tan renga or any other short-form poem (six lines or fewer). Because this year also marks Xpress’ 20th anniversary, the theme is “20” and is open to your interpretation. Poems must be appropriate for a general readership, and all qualifying poems will be published online with select submissions appearing in print in our April 9 issue.
Send poems (one per writer) to amarshall@mountainx.com by Friday, March 14, to be considered for print publication.
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