Cash prizes, publication offered to local high school students
Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel
The cause of world peace is coming to the high schools of Humboldt County in the new year.
The Redwood Coast Peace Poetry Contest focuses the minds of local students on the abolition of war, hate and violence in favor of peacemaking in our communities. To this end, the Humboldt Bay Chapter of Veterans for Peace is teaming up with the Humboldt Chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the Social Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside to put on their third annual competition.
“Participants in similar events across the nation have helped to establish a ‘culture of peace’ in their communities,” VFP Veterans Education and Outreach Project co-chair Jon Reisdorf stated in a release. “We also expect this contest to become a valuable resource for educators interested in the intersection of peace studies and the creative arts.”
While all authors who meet the contest guidelines will be honored in a public ceremony at the end of the school year, a panel of independent judges will select several poems for cash prizes of up to $200. All work is to be completely original and unpublished, and each author will be invited to read his or her poem to the assembly; they’ll also receive a copy of the 2012 Redwood Coast Peace Poetry Anthology. Additional copies of the anthology will be donated to school and other public libraries, and will be made available for purchase.
The deadline for poetry entries is Mar. 5, 2012 at 5 p.m. Contest organizers urge students to contact their English, Drama or Language Arts teachers for more information; members of the public can also visit vfp56.org, or can contact Reisdorf at (707) 822-4595 and jonreisdorf@hotmail.com, or VFP member Carl Stancil at (707) 616-6405 and carlstancil@gmail.com.
