ISFPC is proud to launch an anthology of the winners of our 2016 Annual Contest. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of every category are featured in this book. Read the best of sonnets, roundels, triolets, pantoums, free verse, villanelles, rictameters, nonets, and rhyming poems. Friendship, romance, cats, loss, heartbreak, joy, nature and nostalgia are here; they merely need your hand to open these pages to bring their words fully into life.

A HUGE THANKS goes out to:

Deborah Petersen, our 2016 Contest Chair.

Jenny Kalahar, who designed our beautiful cover and and handled layout and publication details.

We are much indebted, ladies!

ISFPC is looking for sponsors for the 2017 Annual Contest. Many of us have entered and benefited from the contest before. It challenges poets to tackle new forms and themes. Plus, the winners will be published in a print book.

Who will step forward and sponsor a category this year? You get to decide the subject, form, and length. You determine the prize amounts. And you decide whether you want to judge your category or have someone else do it.

Form below.

I would like to invite you to submit short stories or poetry to The Polk Street Review. The Polk Street Review is an anthology of pieces by Noblesville writers or about Noblesville. Some of you have been published in earlier editions. Kurt Meyer and Bill Kenley founded PSR and published 4 editions. This year, they handed the reins to Logan Street Sanctuary. Alys Caviness-Gober and Sarah E. Morin will be in charge of it this year. We are looking for submissions by Dec 31, and will launch the book Feb 25.
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The theme this year is "journey."

We would love to feature some of you!

More information is available at http://loganstreetsanctuary.org/the-polk-street-review. 

A dove set down on my front lawn
And fell upon its side.
Raised up its wing to greet the dawn;
And with that last brave gesture done,
Lay down again and died.
 
I felt a lump rise in my throat.
A mist filled up my eye.
A heaviness lay on my breast.
The scene had put me to the test.
A poignant question…“Why?”
 
If what is best is life itself,
Why are we made to die?
Starting out like an unread book;
Asking all to come and look.
Making the noble try.
 
Must all our trouble be for naught?
A small cry in eternity?
Must by the trap we all be caught?
Is death the one great certainty?
 
Or, does life sing beyond the grave,
A song of souls too brave to die?
A melody to match the stars,
Transcending death’s gray prison bars,
The certainty a lie?