In “Sisters,” from Brian Evenson’s story collection Song for the Unraveling of the World (Coffee House Press, 2019), the narrator recounts her sister’s observations of an unfamiliar holiday: Halloween. “The carving of pumpkins into the shapes of those rejected by both heaven and hell, the donning of costumes (by which she meant a sort of substitute skin affixed over the real skin, though in this locale they used an artificial rather than, as we were prone to do, an actual skin), and the ‘doorstep challenge.’” For the family of ghosts new to the neighborhood, the contemporary customs of scary costumes and trick-or-treating are defamiliarized, and the reader is presented with parallels between humans wearing costumes—“artificial” skins—and the ghosts’ tendency to inhabit real human bodies, or “actual” skin. Write a poem in the first person that explores the idea of slipping into another’s skin. Invoke both horror and humor as you consider what might become unfamiliar once you experience the world through someone else’s eyes.

LaShaun “Phoenix” Kotaran is a longtime figure in the slam community and has recently been chosen to host a new poetry slam series in Detroit. It is exciting to see poetry back in a venue that hasn’t had a poetry event in over ten years—Detroit Symphony Orchestra. This immaculate building offers a dynamic recital hall known as the Cube for performances.

I had a chance to speak to Phoenix about adding this new gig to her extensive hosting career. While Phoenix is excited about the opportunity, she feels that the literary offerings in the city have shrunken, especially since the city’s bankruptcy. “It’s been tough to partner with venues in downtown Detroit and Cass Corridor,” Phoenix says. However, the new slam series at the Cube brings hope of fresh growth. “Detroit Symphony Orchestra is very Detroit, very white and blue collar. It is Detroit grit. This is the perfect space to cultivate culture,” she says.

The first Cube Poetry Slam went down last month and featured incredible local poets and an acoustic set by singer and songwriter Peter Collins who made his Detroit debut. This fall, the series continues with an all-female lineup. I will be watching this series very closely and reporting about it in the near future!

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Submissions are open for the inaugural Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize. Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, with support from Treehouse Investments, the award will honor “exceptional poems that help make real for readers the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment at present.” The award for first place is $1,000; a second-place prize of $750 and a third-place prize of $500 will also be awarded. The winners will all be published in the Academy of American Poet’s Poem-a-Day series.

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Using only the online submission system, submit a poem of any length by November 1. Submissions in Spanish will be allowed if they are accompanied by an English translation. Performance or spoken word poets may submit video of their work. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

This year’s contest will be judged by environmentalist Bill McKibben and poet Julia Alvarez. “We’re grateful to have the opportunity to address the climate crisis through poetry and hope the poets’ poems we’ll publish might inspire people to learn more about the issue and how they can help,” says Jennifer Benka, executive director of the Academy of American Poets. 

Established in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is one of the largest nonprofits in the United States dedicated to supporting contemporary poetry. In addition to the Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize, the organization annually awards more than $1 million to poets through its American Poets Prizes.

“I saw the book as another kind of house. How did I want the reader to pass through it? What room would they enter first, and how should that room feel?” writes Sarah M. Broom about the structure of her debut memoir, The Yellow House (Grove Press, 2019), in “The New Nonfiction 2019” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Write a memoiristic piece, or revisit one already in progress, and work on constructing it like a house that the reader must pass through. Plan out the points of entry and exit, and organize different sections or vignettes to be experienced as rooms visited one after another.

How does the atmosphere of a cathedral change when a carnival slide is installed inside of it? A recent New York Times article reported that in an attempt to engage people into visiting and attending their services, a number of ancient churches and cathedrals in England have incorporated installations such as a four-story-tall winding carnival slide, a space-themed exhibit with a reproduction of the moon’s surface, and a mini golf course. Write a story that takes place in a cathedral that has incorporated some untraditional elements. Does the incongruity offer a different perspective of the space? Are the new features considered a disruption or are they welcomed?

How many people does it take to make a community? At Station Nord, a Danish military outpost and research facility located in Greenland just over five hundred miles from the North Pole, only six people and two dogs live there year-round. Even with such a limited population, isolated locale, and frigid temperatures, inhabitants establish a convivial sense of home and community with shared meals, silly rules, pig roasts, and game nights. Write a poem about a group of people who provided you with a warm sense of community. What small, perhaps mundane, moments do you recall that have helped create a sense of belonging, support, and bonding?

One of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, is open for submissions. The annual award, which is given for a single poem, honors Australian poet Peter Porter, who wrote more than fifteen collections of poetry and was celebrated with the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. Porter was also a longtime contributor to the Australian Book Review, which sponsors the eponymous prize. This year’s winner will receive $7,000 AUD (approximately $ 4,713) and will be published in an issue of the review.

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Using only the online submission system, submit a poem of up to 70 lines with an entry fee of $25 AUD (approximately $17) by October 1. All poets writing in English are eligible. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

John Hawke, Bronwyn Lea, and Philip Mead will judge this year’s prize. Its most recent winners are Belle Ling and Andy Kissane, who jointly received the 2019 prize. Ling won for “63 Temple Street, Mong Kok” and Andy Kissane won for “Searching the Dead.”

What would motivate you to walk thousands of miles? Last month, researchers released data that tracked an arctic fox that had made a trek of over two thousand miles across the frozen Arctic Ocean from Norway to Canada over the course of seventy-six days, most likely prompted by a search for food or a new habitat. Write a personal essay about a time that you traveled a long way—traversing a great physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual distance—to achieve something that was of utmost importance to you. What motivated you along the way? How did the trials of the journey compare with the end result?

“What is the difference between the truth and what the characters are telling themselves? If I can figure that out, then things really start to crack open,” says Téa Obreht in a profile by Amy Gall in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine about a question she poses to herself during the writing process. Keep this question in mind as you try writing a short story that revolves around a main character whose version of the truth—about another character, herself, or an event that has happened—differs drastically from a more objective reality. How does the storytelling perspective demonstrate this discrepancy to the reader? What is hidden underneath this version of the story?