Arts Festival Poetry Contest

The Arts Council of Mercer County
Presents
Arts Festival Poetry Contest


Three Categories
1. Adult
2. High School Students
3. Middle School Students
(This includes ALL Home School Students)

Entrants may submit up to 4 poems

Any length is ok but the subject must be “Art”
Entry fees are:
$1.00 for one poem
$3.00 for four poems

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS
October 12th, 2009

Winner will receive 5 copies of a chapbook of their poetry up to 20 pages. Entrants will be able to read some of their work at The Writer’s Café booth at the festival.


Entries and fees should be sent to The Arts Council of Mercer County, 235 Ashley Camp Rd. Harrodsburg, KY. 40330. Any questions should be sent to Tony Sexton at contentedme@hotmail.com

Authors to Read

Harrodsburg poet Tony Sexton will be reading at the Terrapin Hill Festival on Saturaday, September 26th from 2 until 3. He will also be sharing this time slot with another Kentucky author, Ed McClanahan. Come on out to Terrapin Hill Farm this weekend and support these wonderful authors!

The Memory Lives On

The Memory Lives On
By Bobbi Rightmyer


I was going through a rough spot in my life
in between jobs from birthing babies to elderly care.
I finally had the day off and after seeing my family off to school and work,
I settled in to enjoy the TODAY show.
No sooner did I have my nest made when the first plane hit the first tower.
Was it a horrible accident?
Had something gone terribly wrong?
Or were we under attack from a growing terror
we’ve kept on the back burner too long?
Bomb drills and survival skills raced through the edges of my mind
as I tried to comprehend what was going on.
Never one for telephone calls, I detested using the phone,
but I needed to have some answers
so I picked up the receiver to make my first call.
My hubby wasn’t quiet to work yet, but still on his long commute
and he turned on the radio to listen.
Still in shock, I was on the phone again with my soul sister Linda Loo,
when the next tower was hit.
What the hell is going on?
What do we do?
Why hasn’t the Emergency Broadcast System made an interruption –
they interrupt programming when the wind blows the wrong way?
Throughout the next hours I was glued with horror
to the images coming from the frosty screen.
Airplanes,
box cutters,
terrorist attacks – how is this happening in the great USA?
And why is Bush Jr.,
our Commander in Chief,
reading a book upside down to the children all around?
Why doesn’t he do something – anything to make the horror stop?
Our lives will never be the same again, our freedom has been threatened.
I feel I dug a hole that day to bury myself away,
but all the pain and suffering in my personal life just no longer seems to compare.
And now it’s eight years later and the New York skyline remains ruptured –
our tribute to the terrorist,
by our lack of cohesive structure.

Monthly Meeting of Nomadic Ink

Here is a summary of the September meeting of Nomadic Ink, from Tony Sexton:

Attention Ink Blots

Here is an update you will want to take note of:

Beginning the 25th of September we will be meeting twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month. Meeting will be at the Ag Center unless otherwise notified (Paula please check your calendar and see what conflicts we have) and the time will be 6:30 to @8:30. We felt that in order to make the meetings possible for everyone this would be the best plan, it also eliminates all the confusion of when and where we are going to meet. I hope everyone can make every meeting but I know that is dreaming but I hope everyone can make at least one meeting a month. We will try to have the first meeting in a workshop format which will give those working on something new a chance to try it out on the group before making too much revision. We will continue to have Jump Starts and exercises designed to keep us writing. The other meeting will be more like the regular meetings we have been having, more of a discussion about events we are working on or plans for other things going on. I hope we can go back to having a different moderator at least once a month to give a bit more variety to the meeting (I am sure you must be tired of my droneing on and on by now).

The revision workshop meeting on Tuesday nights at 7 at my house will continue for several more weeks and then we will incorporate it into our regular meetings. The only exception to this will be on Tuesday September the 22nd when we will take a van load of writers to the release party of Silas House's newest book. This will be at the Carnegie Center in Lexington and we will leave Harrodsburg between 5 and 5:30 pm and be back before 10. If you would like to go please let me know as soon as possible so if we need more transportation we can arrange that. I think leaving from the old CVS parking lot is best (that is where the library will be housed until the new one is built).

At last night's meeting we brainstormed some ideas for events next year. We have to have these planned before Oct. 1st so we can share them with the Arts Council of Mercer County so they can get them in the Tourist Commission's calendar. Some of the ideas were: Poetry Readings in the downtown park during the month of April which is Poetry Month, other reading events in the park during other months of the year (we are open to suggestions as to what and when if you have a good idea)... We would also like to host some sort of Book Fair with an auction of books donated by well known authors or items those authors might donate... several idea were tossed around and we are hoping you might have some input to that as well. I would also welcome any other ideas for events that you might come up with... we want to do something very outside of the box as far as a writing event... so get out of the box and give us some ideas.

We will be hosting a few other author reading at the Fudge Company but we have no way to schedule those a year in advance.

I almost have the Tee shirt design completed and if you want one or two please let me know. The shirts will be around $8.00 and we can do long sleeve or short sleeve so let me know which you would rather have and what size you would like. I will send you a copy of the design as soon as I have it complete but I need to give Tim and idea of how many we will want. Do you think we should order several to sell to folks outside the group?

I am sure I have forgotten something so if you were at the meeting please reply to all and fill the others in.

We sure do miss a lot of you who were once so excited about the group... if you are still hoping to be a part but things just aren't working out right now, please let us know (if you want a shirt, let me know) AND if you know some who do not have emails please pass this info on to them...or send me a snail mail address and I will try to mail them this message.

Thanks to all of you who have help build this group into something to be proud of.

Tony