Project Verse Seeks Applicants!

Can you write under pressure without breaking a sweat?
Always telling friends that writing a crown of heroic sonnets is a cinch?
Do you dream of perfect line breaks?
If you think you’ve got the write moves, I’ve got the poetry competition for you.

Project Verse


Dustin Brookshire, through I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin and Limp Wrist, is proud to announce Project Verse, the self-proclaimed “Project Runway” of the poetry world.

Project Verse is a free competition set to be a grueling but fun competition for poets. It’s a 10-week competition, and the winner will be announced week 11. Each Monday, an assignment will be posted in I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin. Poets will have to complete and submit the assignment by noon Friday of the same week. The judges will read and score the assignments over the weekend, and the judgment will be posted in I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin the following Monday.

Who are the judges? Dustin Brookshire, Beth Gylys, and Dana Guthrie Martin are your weekly judges; however, it wouldn't be fun without a little variety. Each week, except for the first week of the competition, there will be a guest judge. I would give you the list of guest judges, but that wouldn't be any fun either! We have a varied list of guest judges ranging from Pushcart Prize nominees and winners to a Lambda Literary Award recipient to National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipients.

And a competition wouldn't be complete without a prize! The winner of Project Verse receives the following prize package:
 a contract for a limited edition chapbook published by Limp Wrist
 a weeklong residency at Marilyn Nelson's Soul Mountain Retreat* (for the poet to revise and finish his/her chapbook)
 an interview with Joe Milford of “The Joe Milford Poetry Show”
 a review of the chapbook that will be published in ouroboros review and Limp Wrist
 a year subscription to the Naugatuck River Review
 a copy of Best Gay Poetry 2008
 a copy of the 2008 Squaw Valley Review



How do you apply to compete in Project Verse?
 Write a short bio with a max of 200 words. (Make it personal yet poetic.)
 In 500 words or less, respond to the words of Ellen Bryant Voigt, "It's all a draft until you die."
 Submit a max of 10 unpublished poems, no more than 20 pages total.
 If available, provide links to no more than two sites where your work may be viewed.
 Copy and paste the Rules/Regulations/All That Jazz section on its own page
 "I, *Insert name here*, agree to follow all items listed under the Rules/Regulations/& All That Jazz for Project Verse. I understand that not following these items, at any point during the competition, will result in my being disqualified from Project Verse.
 All requested information should be sent in the order requested above, in one Microsoft Word document, to Dustin Brookshire at dustinvbrookshire@gmail.com by 3/01/09. The subject line of the email should read, "Project Verse: Insert Your Name." Your name and email address must appear on every page of your Microsoft Word document. Numbering your pages will make us smile; however, it won't sway our decision on having you as a contestant.


Rules/Regulations/All That Jazz
 Contestants will be selected from a pool of 15 semi-finalists, which in return will be narrowed down to the 11 Project Verse contestants.
 Contestants may not have published more than one full collection of poetry. (Number of chapbook publications does not matter.)
 Contestants must not have studied with any of the weekly judges in a collegiate setting or be related to any of the weekly judges (by blood, marriage, or love affair).
 Contestants must work solo on the weekly Project Verse assignments. Outside help from friends, family, professors, etc. is strictly prohibited and is cheating. Cheaters will be disqualified from Project Verse and thoroughly gossiped about throughout the blogosphere.
 Contestants must agree not to use any previously written poems for a Project Verse weekly assignment, unless the weekly assignment requests it.
 Contestants must be willing to complete pages two and three from the Soul Mountain Retreat application package. (Click here to see the forms.)
 All written information collected from the application, excluding the information from the Soul Mountain Retreat forms, may be published in I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin.
 The winner's chapbook will be published in the Limp Wrist limited edition chapbook series. The chapbook will include, but will not be limited to, the poems the winner wrote during the Project Verse competition. The chapbook must receive approval from Limp Wrist before being published.
 By participating in Project Verse, you agree to acknowledge Project Verse as first publisher in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc. Copyright reverts back to authors upon appearance in the Project Verse competition, which takes place on the I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin site.
 While the copyright reverts back to the author upon appearance in the Project Verse competition, Dustin Brookshire in combination with Project Verse and I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin, reserve the right to use any poems from the competition to create an anthology in the future.


*Please note: The winner of the competition will be required to arrange transportation to and from Soul Mountain Retreat. The fees of the residency are taken care of by Dustin Brookshire on behalf of I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin.

Don't forget about the autographed items on raffle: CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON THE LIMP WRIST SCHOLARSHIP RAFFLE

"Autopsy" ~ Christopher Hennessy

Christopher's first revision of Autopsy is up at Quarrel.

Away.. Away

OK. I haven't been in the blogosphere for a couple of reasons. Unfortunately, the main reason is because I am experiencing a nasty virus on my laptop. I've done everything the Best Buy Geek Squad would do; however, I have had no luck. The BBGS told me the next step would be to reformat my computer, but I am trying to ensure I have everything saved before doing reformatting. The second reason is because I am moving, and I loathe moving.

Good news-- the poems are pouring out. I'm engaged in a writing exercise with a poet-friend, and it has very productive and fun. Because of the exercise I wrote three poems last week, and it looks like there will be another two to three this week. I'm excited to see what I end up once we're done with this exercise.

OK... back to being a semi-recluse. Hopefully, I should be back in the blogging world fully within another week or two.

Quotes on Writing Poetry

Collin and Kate both tagged me for a Quote Meme--- to find 10 quotes from poets that flow with my thoughts on poetry writing. I guess this is some sort of small landmark in my blogging since this is my first time doing one of these (no wise cracks CK or MM). I added an extra quote for the heck of it.

Images are probably the most important part of the poem. First of all you want to tell a story, but images are what are going to shore it up and get to the heart of the matter.
~ Anne Sexton

You run into people who want to write poetry who don't want to read anything in the tradition. That's like wanting to be a builder but not finding out what different kinds of wood you use.

~ Gary Snyder

Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You've got to stop what you're doing, what you're thinking, and what you're expecting and just be there for the poem for however long it take.

~ W.S. Merwin

The title of your poem can accomplish something your poem did not.
~ Beth Gylys

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."
~ Robert Frost

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
~ Paul Engle

The joy that isn't shared dies young.
~ Anne Sexton

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
~ Maya Angelou

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.
~Marianne Moore

A poetry articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action towards stopping the great miseries which they record.
~ Denise Levertov

I tag MM, Robin, & Charlie.