Bridgette’s Intro 

Poetry Northwest, Instagramers Seattle and We Are Juxt invite you to join our poetry challenge with the poem, “A Field of Light”.  This is the first of a series of poems, to be published for you, for the next year.

We ask that you read the lines of the poem below and follow the link to read it in its entirety. Spend some time with the poem, allow it to evoke emotion and creativity.  Show us how it translates and how you interpret it with a photograph.

After meeting in person with editors, Kevin and William, we thought it was best to open the challenge to everyone around the world.  Our hope is to inspire on a global level and bring the world of poetry and  photography closer together.

On behalf of the Instagramers Seattle and We Are Juxt Juxt teams, I’d like to thank Poetry Northwest for approaching us and giving us the chance to work with such beautiful words.  This is truly a wonderful opportunity for our community.

—–

About Poetry Northwest

Poetry Northwest was founded as a quarterly journal in June, 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, and Nelson Bentley as co-editors. The first issue was 28 pages, it featured a cover image by painter Mark Tobey, and included the work of Philip Larkin, James Wright, and William Stafford. The journal published poetry only (no reviews or other commentary) from this first issue in 1959 until 2002. In August 2005, the University of Washington appointed David Biespiel the new editor of Poetry Northwest and he was succeeded by Kevin Craft in 2010.

The mission of Poetry Northwest is to publish the best in contemporary poetry, exploring the intersection of poetry and the other arts and sciences, to enhance the role poetry plays in enriching public discourse and maintaining a purposeful quality of life. As the region’s oldest literary magazine, we serve as a recognized forum where local, regional, and national writers, artists, and audiences intersect. Our founding editor Carolyn Kizer placed a special emphasis on encouraging the “raw, emerging talents, the neglected and overlooked,” and we continue to see ourselves as a gateway into the profession, remaining insistently open to young and emerging writers, offering them a wide and thoughtful audience by producing a high quality magazine with international scope and reach. Poetry Northwest remains an independent, autonomous nonprofit organization fully dependent on subscriber and community support.

The Photography Issue

Over the last few years Poetry Northwest has established a tradition of publishing theme based issues. Last spring saw The Science Issue. The year before saw The Carolyn Kizer Issue. Influences, politics, and music were the focus of other themes. Our current issue is The Photography Issue. It’s our largest one ever, clocking in at over 70 pages, and features poems and photos juxtaposed against each other in a way that emphasizes an aspect shared between the two art forms: the act of creating a good poem or a good photo is essentially, to borrow a phrase from Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, “sculpting in time.”  They distill singular moments into small sustained emotional eternities that impact readers and viewers over and over again. Their perfectly balanced elements strike upon something that simply wouldn’t exist if everything wasn’t placed just so.

Poetry Northwest + Instagramers Seattle + We Are Juxt

Poetry Northwest approached Instagramers Seattle and We Are Juxt to see how people would respond to poems visually and are working together for the rest of the year on a simple contest: monthly we post a poem and you have thirty days to respond to it visually. At the end of the month we pick our favorite snapshot and the winner receives a year long subscription to Poetry Northwest.

—–

Under, under the sheaves,
Under the blackened leaves,
Behind the green viscid trellis,
In the deep grass at the edge of field,
Along the low ground dry only in August, –
Was it dust I was kissing?
A sigh came far.
Alone, I kissed the skin of a stone;
Marrow-soft, danced in the sand.

Those lines come from Theodore Roethke’s poem “A Field of Light”, our June mobile photography challenge. What does it look like to you? We want to see it.

—–

From June 3 – June 30 we challenge you to respond to “A Field of LIght” how ever you see fit. Any element of the poem is up for interpretation.

Challenge Rules
1. Post a photo to Instagram and tag it with #fieldoflight and #ponwphoto
2. Poetry Northwest (@poetrynw), Instagramers Seattle, & We Are Juxt will pick the winner who will receive a year long subscription (2 issues) to Poetry Northwest.
3. Unlimited entries.
4. Photos must be posted to Instagram to #fieldoflight in order to be considered.
5. Photos must be posted between June 3 and June 30, 2013. Any photos posted after the close of the challenge will not be considered.
6. Poetry Northwest, Instagramers Seattle, & We Are Juxt reserve the right to remove any photo deemed inappropriate for any reason.
7. By participating, you understand that Poetry Northwest, Instagramers Seattle, & We Are Juxt may reproduce and display your photo at future events and you will be notified if we intend to do so.

We are excited to see your Field of Light!

About Author

Bridgette

Latest stories

• 1000 WordsOctober 6, 20141,000 Words: Emotions
• Bridgette ShimaSeptember 29, 2014The Reinvention of Chloe: Chapter 12
• Bridgette ShimaSeptember 26, 2014Beep Ahhh Fresh Crew
• StoriesSeptember 18, 2014What do you LOVE about #SocialPhotography?