ABOUT THE CONTEST:
SUMMER FIREFLIES POETRY CONTEST 2022: The clouds have lifted, the flowers have bloomed, and it is finally Summertime! Somehow even in the darkest of times, Summer brings joy: beach days, long nights, and fireflies. This Summer Fireflies challenge sounds simple, but see if you agree: write a happy poem.
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This can be a poem of any length, form, or content as long as it can be described as joyful. It can be true or fanciful, long or short, vague or specific. Happiness exists in a variety of appearances and forms, and thus so can your poem. Emotions tend to beg to be captured on the page during our most angry and sad times, but this also indicates how important it is to bring out joy. Take out your firefly-catching jars, and capture your brightest moments of laughter, hope, love, and of course, happiness. Don’t forget to read our judging criteria and Terms and Conditions before making the submission.
JUDGING CRITERIA:
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Uniqueness – 50% Creativity/Style and Originality – 30% The coherence of form and structure (harmony of words, presentation) – 10% Clarity of imagery and language – 10% => TOTAL – 100%
JUDGING PANEL:
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Ruchi Acharya
Ruchi Acharya is the Founder and CEO of the Wingless Dreamer Publisher. She is an Oxford University Summer Graduate in English Literature. She has been a contributor to multiple publishing platforms and won several awards for her exemplary work in creative writing. She believes emotions expressed in poetry can be heard everywhere, from all voices. She is devoted to publishing literary works reflecting the entirety of multiple perspectives and varied experiences extracted from the deep well of soulful human existence. At its core, the human spirit desires connections through expressions. Her ultimate goal is to give wings to these heartfelt dreams. As of 2022, she resides in Chennai, India enjoying the coconut water, palm trees, sandy beaches and sunkisses.
“All worries are less with wine” – Ruchi Acharya, Wingless Dreamer Founder
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Rebecca Raush
Rebecca Raush (she/her) is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University pursuing an English major with minors in International and Global Studies and Creative Writing. With a deep passion for poetry, her current inspirations include Ocean Vuong, Mark Doty, and Blythe Baird. In her free time, she enjoys reading, running, and writing. Past accolades include winning the My Spoken Mark Spoken Word poetry competition through her university in 2020 and winning third prize in the Evelyn Hamilton poetry award through the Rutgers Writers House. This is her first time editing a poetry anthology with Wingless Dreamer.
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REWARD:
The certificates will be provided to the winner and top finalists. All the selected participants’ poems will get published in our upcoming May anthology which will be available on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Nobles, and Walmart among other reading platforms. All the published contributors’ names will be mentioned on our website.
RULES AND GUIDELINES:
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All entries are judged anonymously and the poet’s name must not appear on the poem itself.
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All poems must have a title and must not exceed 40 lines in length (excluding title).
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The participant must be 18 years old or above at the time of submitting the work with us.
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Poems must be in English. One poem per poet.
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Poems must be the entrant’s original work.
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Entries must not have been published, self-published, published on a website, or made public on social media, broadcast, or featured among the winners in another competition before May 2022.
September 7, 2022 | Wingless Dreamer | Announcements
Congrats to everyone! We are happy to announce our winners for the Summer Fireflies poetry contest! All the winners, finalists, and contributors will be published in the anthology! Thank you to all who participated! We loved reading all these lovely poems from all over the world
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For this contest, we asked the poets of the world to write happy poems. These poets met the challenge and succeeded amazingly
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Without further ado, here is our grand winner. Hold your breath:
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ROD FRANCISCO – THE FADING LIGHT
Rod is a writer from sub-tropical Central Queensland who has an avid collection of folders and journals filled with half-finished works, concepts, and ideas. Writing for personal enjoyment and reflection than anything else, Rod has engaged in a range of different styles in poetry, short stories, and scripts; some of which have been longlisted, shortlisted, and published. Most recently Rod’s poems “Jigsaw” and “Can you imagine?” were published in the 2020 ‘Dark Poetry’ collection; “Darkness of Sunrise” in the 2021 ‘Emily Dickinson Poetry Collection’; “In the cool of the morning” in the 2021 ‘Dawn of the day’ anthology; ‘Emptiness of my soul’ and ‘Descent into darkness’ in the 2021 ‘The Book of Black’. In 2022, two more poems were published: ‘A River Run Dry’ in “Garden of poets” and ‘When it is dark’ in “My Cityline”. His writing spans across a variety of genres with his most recent published works having a darker theme.
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Blow the trumpet for our first runner-up:
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PAULA RODRIGUES – THE GHOST OF SUMMER
Paula M. Rodriguez is an educator in greater Los Angeles. She started her literary career in Spain, where she won first award on the prestigious poetry prize Francisco Nieva, but focused thereafter on academic publications that deal with different aspects of the literary experience, from Shakespeare to Henry James. Her first poem published in the United States appeared in 2006 in The Blind Man’s Rainbow, under the title “Other Words for Absence.” Since then, she has earned prizes in the Urban Ocean poetry contest, she has published her work in two anthologies, her poems have been published by Scintilla Press and Humble Pie Literary Magazine, and her novella “Angelus” has appeared in The Write Launch.
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Cue the confetti for our second runner-up:
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JASON CLEMMONS -THE UNIVERSE HAS MAGICKED IN ITS HEART A LOVE (FOR PETER)
Jason Clemmons earned a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he currently works as a program director for Honors Carolina. He has one previously published work in North Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2021 by Local Gems Press. He lives in central North Carolina with his husband, Peter.
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Beat the drums for our top finalists:
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DICK ALTMAN – LIKE NIGHT-BLOOMING ORCHIDS
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, , The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, newversenews, Sky Island Journal and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.
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LOUISE MOISES – APRICOT PICKING
Louise Moises was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she still resides. She has been published by High Shelf Press, California Poetry Society, Wingless Dreamer, the Ina Coolbrith Circle, Unlimited Literature, Pinole Writers among others. During Covid lock-down, she has attended numerous Zoom poetry groups where she enjoys reading her work. She enjoys traveling in her motor home with her cat, exploring back roads, National Parks, and hidden wonders.
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A huge round of applause for our contributors.