Express Yourself With Literary “Backbone”
For National Poetry Month, the Library is holding an all-ages contest for original Spine Poetry.
Submissions will be posted online for public voting, and the final prize winners will be chose by our Guest Judges, author Evan Smith Rakoff and artist Chandi Kelley.
My dad is strong, but…
Alice the fairy
Promises to keep
The mermaid garden.
Guidelines
- Open to all ages
- Poems must be submitted in photographic form (see examples)
- Poems must be created by stacking book, DVD, audiobook or CD spines (feel free to mix media)
- Each participant may submit up to 3 poems
- In order to collect a prize, winners must come to the Central Library
How to Enter (3 easy ways)
- Email your photograph(s) as an attachment to gkoury@arlingtonva.us
- Tag your photograph(s) on twitter, tumblr or instagram with #APLSpinePoetry
- Add you photograph(s) to the Arlington VA Public Library Spine Poetry Contest flickr group
Deadline for Submissions – Saturday, April 20, 2013
Public Voting will take place online from April 21 – April 28, and in person at Poetry Open Mic Night on April 30 at the Aurora Hills Branch Library. Then the winners will be chosen by our Guest Judges, and announced in early May.
Who are the Guest Judges?
- Evan Smith Rakoff is a freelance writer and the Assistant Online Editor of Poets & Writers Magazine.
- Chandi Kelley is a local artist who’s recent series Timelines uses book spines to create the basis for visual narratives that explore how we record our lives and personal histories.
For more information about the Spine Poetry Contest, contact Geoff Koury at 703 228-0326 or gkoury@arlingtonva.us.
Is this for Arlington residents only?
Anyone can enter, or even win, but we are only able to award prizes to people who are able to come to the Library to pick them up (i.e., we can’t mail prizes).
do you mean that titles on spines of hardbound or paperbound books are not eligible?
Helena,
Ack, no! We didn’t mean that – the word book was edited out by mistake (and that mistake has now been fixed).
To clarify, poems can be “created by stacking book, DVD, audiobook or CD spines (feel free to mix media).”