Are you a graphic artist who loves to work with chalk? Would you like a chance to create something for the 2017 Chalk the Block event at the Shops at Riverwoods in Provo? Provo Poetry and Enliten Bakery would like to sponsor an artist for this year’s event and create a beautiful piece of art inspired by and incorporating the work of a local poet. Choose from five poems submitted to Provo Poetry and sketch a proposed chalk painting based on and incorporating your chosen poem (and the name of the poet). This year’s event is September 14th to 16th (with the next weekend as a contingency for rain delays). Send your sketch to provopoetry@gmail.com with “Chalk the Block” in the subject line by September 7, 2017.
Choose from these poems:
1.
Tanka
by Laura West
Winds twist violently
through tired branches of our peach
tree, heaving dust of summer.
The cleansing September rain,
for us, cannot come too soon.
2.
by Colin Douglas
“Your poems are querulous.”
So says the woman who leaves the table,
Frowning with disapproval.
Querulous? But she may be right,
And I would prefer to hide in a huckleberry bush,
Feet in the roots, hands extended into the leaves
3.
[tanka]
by Neil Shelley
In the soft shadows,
contractions birth her strength.
Sweat beads upon skin;
he sees a crimson drop fall.
Her work done, the cry anew.
4.
What will you call her?
by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen
compass of quantum foam
conduit of accommodation
juggler of change
absorber of dereliction
sacredly managed veil
of consecration and sacrifice
architect of light vessels
the girl who chews at obedience
like a leather strap
thermometer
mercury
element
atom
Eve
5.
Skydive
by Trish Hopkinson
The corpses jump like
jellyfish balloons into
a trailing ocean
of exhausted clouds and sky.
They don’t know they are dying.
Provo Poetry 