ASPS 2025 Winter Meeting and Workshop, comments by Mike Wahl

On the first of February, our first 2025 meeting/workshop was held via ZOOM. There were 19 people who signed up, which was an encouraging number. Perhaps one reason for the great involvement was that Rita enlisted two workshop leaders who have amazing credentials and talents as poetry experts. Thank you Rita.

The initial workshop was conducted by Sue Brannan Walker, and it's main thrust was on how to enjoy and construct short prose poems, using some "Short Talks" poems of Ann Carson as examples. Sue willingly shared some of her own short prose poems, which were equally intriguing. They all captivated my attention, and have motivated me to write several of my own. Sue provided some writing prompts, and encouraged us all to jot down thoughts on the spot, and expand from there. She attempted to involve every person at the meeting, interfacing directly with questions and responses, making it seem almost like we were all together in one place. It was a truly wonderful experience to have such a great poet so keenly aware of her audience, as individuals, and for her to be so willing to motivate each of us to write our own masterpieces.

 

Russell Strauss led the second workshop, with it's main focus being the providing of tips on how and why judges make the decisions they do when evaluating poems for various contest categories. Although Russell presented only his own criteria for making judgments, all judges are going to have similar ideas, but may not have written them down as succinctly as he, so his insights were well appreciated by this attendee. He willingly shared his experiences, not only about judging, but from a contestant's viewpoint as well, which added much to his comments. Like most of us, he has encountered frustrations

with some of the contest rules, guidelines, subjects, and repetitive categories, at both state and NFSPS levels. He encouraged everyone to submit poem entries to contests, and to enter as many categories as you can for each. He stressed several times the importance of following rules for form, subject, length, and applicability for every poem being entered in contests. He also stressed the importance of not submitting previously published poems (unless that is allowed in the rules). He relayed examples of the immense disaster it can become if a poem is mistakenly or inadvertently submitted, if it happens to win an award, and gets discovered as illegitimate. Russell's relaxed and open persona made his points easy to comprehend, and his remarks to workshop attendees should certainly encourage all of us to get busy entering contests.