In Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume, a septology whose first two books translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland were published in November by New Directions, the protagonist is an antiquarian bookseller residing with her husband in France, who suddenly begins reliving the same day over and over again—a mysterious and seemingly endless predicament that creates a spectrum of conflicts in her life. Write a poem that imagines this Groundhog Day premise. Choose a particular day in your life that’s significant to you, and then write into the possibilities and quandaries that arise as the same day, and same actions, recur endlessly. In your imagination, what transpires when you know exactly what will happen each day while everyone else around you repeats their steps? How can you play with replicating the repetition in verse form?
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.