Dancing Poetry Festival Contest
Deadline: April 15, 2018
Sponsored by Artists Embassy International - 25th Year
Three Grand Prize Winning Poems to be Danced and Filmed
- 3 Grand Prizes will receive $100 each plus their poems will be danced and filmed. Each Grand Prize winner will be invited onstage for photo ops with the dancers and a bow in the limelight.
- Six First Prizes will receive $50 each
- Twelve Second Prizes will receive $25 each
- Thirty Third Prizes will receive $10 each
- All winners will receive a prize certificate suitable for framing and be invited to read at our 2018 Festival at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco
The top three poems chosen as Grand Prizes will be choreographed, costumed, and recorded live in an on-stage performance at the Festival. See pictures from our 2017 Festival, and check the other tabs on our website to read winning poems and view photos of the winning poets.
Last year's Grand Prize winners included Constantina Clark, Shirley McPhillips, and Claudine Nash. For poetry, we look for something new and different including new twists to old themes, different looks at common situations, and innovative concepts for dynamic, thought-provoking entertainment.
The entry fee is $5 per poem or $10 for 3 poems, payable to Artists Embassy International. (Poets outside the USA, please send an international postal money order in US dollars or US currency.) Each poem may be up to 40 lines long. Send two copies of each poem. One copy should be anonymous (just title and poem), the other should have your name, address, phone, email address, and where you heard about this contest (e.g. Winning Writers Newsletter). There is no limit on the number of entries. Entries should be typed.
Your entry should be suitable for a general audience since our following is comprised of people of all ages and ethnicities. English translations must be included with non-English poems. Our judges consist of poets, dancers, musicians, and visual artists of various media, all members of Artists Embassy International. Judging is done with the anonymous copies of the poems. Artists Embassy International is a non-profit, volunteer, arts and education organization whose goal is to further intercultural understanding through the arts.
Three poets, the Grand Prize winners, will be rewarded with seeing their poems danced by Natica Angilly's Poetic Dance Theater Company, a well-known dance troupe that has performed around the world and throughout America. This company is dedicated exclusively to creating new avenues by combining poetry, dance, and music together for presentation and the expansion of poetry with dance in the life of our culture.
To enter the contest, please visit our website at www.dancingpoetry.com or submit to AEI Contest Chair W, Judy Cheung, 704 Brigham Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Questions? Please email Ms. Cheung at jhcheung@comcast.net.
Please enjoy “Matisse in Morocco” by Sandra W. Soli, winner of a Grand Prize in 2006:
Matisse in Morocco
Our horses are up to their
necks in flowers here.
—Pierre Loti
Come quickly, Amalie.
Have you seen shadows
or sunlight anywhere like these?
How new all this is,
how difficult to render
with reds, yellows, blues.
We must be bold!
Colors wash history clean here.
Even the people are flowers.
Look how indigos clasp
each other, imagining someone
always walking behind, perhaps
that woman in the street,
carrying a jug of water.
For her, art and life
the same thing.
Whites first, and umbers,
finally these lengthening
lavenders as city
comes to night bloom
like moonflowers
startling us hour by hour,
breakfast oranges and croissants
a distant mystery
far as the bells of camels
or previous ways of seeing.
Loti said his horse fell
swimming in petals.
I know now
he told the truth.
Ah, to drown in such a sea!
We must believe
gardens we can not see,
the fragrant twilight
framed at our window,
the woman below
walking away with her burden of life,
this view of paradise
that changes everything.
