Paper Gardens Judge Charles Goodrich reads

Paper Gardens 2012 Literary Contest for Adult, Youth and Children writers is sponsored by Arts Alliance of Yamhill County.  The 19th Paper Gardens celebration was held on April 13th at the McMinnville Community Center.  Contest Chair-person was Kelli Grinich and Judge was Charles Goodrich.

We filmed the event and finally edited it into a 45 minute for TV show.  We delivered Meadowlake Studios Encounter: Paper Gardens 2012 to McMinnville Community Media yesterday.  MCM starts a new weekly schedule on Saturdays.  Our Meadowlake Encounter with Paper Gardens will likely begin on Comcast Channel 11 and Frontier 29 on Saturday the 12th.  It is all there.  Kelli Grinich's introduction, Charles Goodrich's encouragement, his reading of some of his poems and the Adult, Youth and Children categories in Free Verse, Traditional Poetry, Haiku, Poetry of Place and Prose who chose to read their work.

As the evening was wrapping up Charles handed me a copy of his newest book of poems Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden.  The poems follow the seasons from Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring and to Summer again.  His voice has an elegant calm, his eye able to see the finest detail of ordinary and not so ordinary things and his humor and humanity are reflected without trying.

Once the TV show is edited it is not much more to edit segments to fit YouTube's limit of 15 minutes or less. 

I liked the "Bubble Bee" poem.  The day before yesterday I watch a bubble bee struggling to work on a tiny blue rosemary flower.  Charles poem is perfect.

Paper Gardens Literary Contest Deadline February 15th

Paper Gardens Literary Contest DEADLINE is postmark February 15th.  Applications are now being accepted for the 2012 Paper Gardens Literary contest. Click here for the application form.

The Arts Alliance of Yamhill County invites submissions to the 2012 Paper Gardens Literary Contest.  Open to all residents of Yamhill County ages 6 and up, Paper Gardens is a wonderful creative-writing outlet for the community. 

Charles Goodrich

Corvallis poet and essayist Charles Goodrich will be the judge this year. Goodrich is the director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word at Oregon State University.  He is the author of "The Practice of Home" and "Insects of South Corvallis" His newest collection of work may be found in his book "Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden" (Silverfish Review Press, 2010).

Paper Gardens features two main categories for submission, poetry and prose, and encompasses three age groups: children (ages six to 12), youths (ages 13 to 18) and adults (19 and above). The prose category includes subcategories of short story and memoir, and is limited to one submission per person. Poetry has four subcategories: traditional, free verse and haiku, and returning for a second year, poetry-of-place.

The poetry-of-place subcategory is specifically intended for poems written about or inspired by places in Yamhill County. As Paper Gardens is a literary contest for residents of Yamhill County, work inspired by our local surroundings is a natural fit for the competition.

Writers may submit up to three poems total. More than one submission per subcategory is allowed. The entry fee for adults is five dollars. Children and youth submissions are free of charge.

The judge will select three winners in each category, and the winning poems will be published in the 2012 Paper Gardens chapbook. The winning authors will receive a free chapbook and certificate of recognition, and will be invited to read their work at an awards ceremony Friday April 13th at the McMinnville Community Center.

                                       Kelli Grinich, Paper Gardens Part One

Recently Kelli Grinich, the Chair of the Paper Gardens Literary Contest talked with Lynda Phillippi on the Arts Alive program. Arts Alive: Paper Gardens Part One  and Arts Alive: Paper Gardens: Part Two the 30 minute show is in Part One and Two because of Youtube limit of 15 minutes.  The full show will air on McMinnville Community Media begin Saturday, February 11th and run four or five times during the week.