Meeting Cancelled

August's meeting of KWWN is cancelled... members must be catching the last rays of sunshine in foreign climes before Autumn.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Creativite solutions

Brain fodder moments...

Mixing it up with others from different fields helps us to think outside our comfort zones... maybe we need to be firing up our creativity by broadening our field of view by exchanging ideas...

Having KWWN nights when we listen to podcasts, or TED talks followed by discussions may be a way of expanding our idea horizons and feeding our creativity... perhaps we can discuss this at our next meeting on Saturday 29th August at 11:30am at Tralee Library

It's that time again...

I know you'd rather be walking on the beach or in the sand dunes but it's that time again... KWWN's next meeting is this Saturday 29th August at 11:30 at Tralee Library and Tara White has agreed to come and talk about offering to deliver a writing course for members. Hope you can make it!

Ballymaloe International Poetry Competition

THE BALLYMALOE INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 2015 IS NOW OPEN! 

Set in ten acres of organic market gardens, orchards and greenhouses, which are, in turn, surrounded by a hundred acres of organic farm, Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School is the proud sponsor of the Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize, in association with The Moth.

This year’s judge – Billy Collins – is a two-term US Poet Laureate and ‘the most popular poet in America,’ according to the New York Times.

The Prize is for a single unpublished poem. The competition is open to anyone, and you can enter as many poems as you like. 

The entry fee is €12 per poem. 

ENTER ONLINE HERE

Or you can send your poem(s) along with a cheque or postal order made payable to The Moth Magazine Ltd. and an entry form or a cover letter with your name and contact details and the title of poem(s) attached to: The Moth, Ardan Grange, Milltown, Belturbet, Co. Cavan, Ireland. 

And don’t forget to READ THE RULES before you enter!

The shortlist will be announced in March 2016. 

The four shortlisted poems will feature in the spring issue of The Moth. 

The overall winner will be announced at a special award ceremony in Dublin. 

Check out Past winners

Thoughts upon poetry

In her essay Poetry is not a luxury, Audre Lorde says, "The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives."

Writing helps us to gaze upon life. As writers we train the microscope of the senses over a particular aspect of life and by doing so we hope to bring greater understanding of life as we live it. Unlike the novelists amongst us, poets do not have a lot of time to devote to our task. As poets we write in the snatches of time available to us in our busy, hectic lives. Whenever we write, we write in the hope that the poetry we create has some resonance with others.

I believe that ideas gleaned from our reading or listening to other writers, philosophers, historians, scientists, feminists, social activists etc. will help us to scrutinize our lives with the aid of a stronger beam of light and will inform our understanding of life so that what we produce has greater meaning.

For me Gwendolyn Brooks poem We Real Cool is an example of just that

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/17315

Claire O'Mahony

Competition for the Poets amongst us...

Manchester Poetry competition must be one of the most lucrative for unpublished poetry.

Poetry Prize: £10,000
Deadline: Friday 25th September 2015
Entry fee: £17.50
Poetry Judges: Adam O’Riordan, Olivia Cole and Kei Miller

http://www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk/poetry2014/online_entry.php