Extra Credit for Entering this Contest--If you're interested, I'll help you, let me know.

EPOC Poetry Contest – 2011 ComFest
GUIDE LINES
Email submission with ComFest in the subject line to: hanseatin@columbus.rr.com
Submit up to 3 poems with no more than 40 lines each by: June 15, 2011
Address any and/or all of the following topics: Mountain Top Removal, Factory Farming,
Plastic Bags, Nuclear Power, Fracking, EWaste
Last Name – First Name
Child or Adult (18 years +)
E-mail
Title of Poem 1
Topic of Poem 1
Title of Poem 2
Topic of Poem 2
Title of Poem 3
Topic of Poem 3
PRIZES
Winners in both, the Children’s and the Adult Category receive 1st, 2nd or 3rd cash prizes ranging from $10 to $100 and/or ComFest T-Shirts/Memorabilia as well as a reading of their poems on one of the ComFest Stages.
Check in at the Solar Stage on 6/25 at 4:30pm if you would like to write a poem during our EcoPoetry Workshop with poets, facilitators and music.
Disclaimer:
The transcribers of these poems are not responsible for their accuracy in trying to decipher submissions that are handwritten .
Support the Environment with Your Voice!
WHAT IS ECO POETRY?
EcoPoetry conjures vivid details, rich history and intense nature imagery that channels the audience’s energy toward environmental activism. While staying true to their poetic intent, poets and audience explore the 3 Rs (reuse, recycle, reduce by weaving nature into language: connecting literary imagination to our landscape, natural history, and a sense of environmental urgency. Several formats lend themselves to EcoPoetry:
Call-and-Response Poems will reflect on sustainable farming practices, reversing watershed damage and minimizing air pollution through immersing rather than confronting the listener.
Personification Poems lead the listeners through role and group readings. Participants enjoy different poetic styles as a tool to address ecological issue thus encouraging them to engage in literary arts and environmental projects.
Traditional Poetry reveals the lyricist as relying solely on writing itself to promote change, i.e. the traditional strengths of poetry, its powers of observation, to teach others to be aware of the intimate connections between human beings and nature, to document the importance of nature, and most importantly, to call for the importance of human stewardship. Activist Poetics, both environmentalist and feminist in nature, enact a partnership ethic with nature, intended to alter, and better our communities.
The above and other forms of Interactive Poetry must pertain to Water, Soil, Air or Noise Pollution, Environmental Conservation or Preservation Issues. To express your concern for the degrading environment and awaken the audience, no other restrictions apply because poetry and the environment belong to everybody – or is that wishful thinking?
Discovering the limitations of environmental poetry as either promising hope or forecasting doom, brings about the understanding that they are similar in that they consider human beings as dominant over nature, with the power to either cure or destroy the planet. Poets may suggest a different approach such as a partnership with nature, whereby poetry could eventually lead to a change in individual ethics.
While listening to and/or engaging in creating poetry to protect the environment, we are reminded that the wild is still present and we must act to preserve rather than tame the still free and unmanaged. Recognizing this necessity, poetry can serve as a powerful means for environmental stewardship.