Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Golden Shovel”
A few months back, I entered the Fall 2025 Adult Contest of the Oregon Poetry Association. One of the categories this time was called Extended Prompt. The rules were one page and one poem maximum in any form following the prompt, “Turning Point.” The judge, Richard Tillinghast, provided some additional guidance: “Write a poem about a turning point in your life, a landmark event or life-choice. Something—
good or bad—has happened that changes everything.”
My poem, “A Long Way Around,” has been accepted for publication in American Writers Review 2025, a publication of San Fedele Press. This year’s collection has the theme of “Buyer’s Remorse.” This poem is in a form called a golden shovel in which the last word of each line is made from each word of pre-existing poem to which the poet is paying homage. It was created by Terrance Hayes whose 2010 poem
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Suddenly, out of the blue, I’ve found myself motivated to gather up a whole passel of my recent poems into yet another book-length collection. Well, it wasn’t exactly out of the blue. I was spurred onward when I saw the notice for the John Ridland Poetry Prize, a new prize open to poets 55 years and older
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