The following Poetry Society of Tennessee (PST) news items include regular monthly updates as well as makes notes of special events over the last 12 months. Looking for something further back? Contact us! We'll be happy to provide some additional information!
Note that contest winners are identified in each month's news.
COVID-19 announcement
PST-West Tennessee is suspending regular monthly meetings (at the White Station Public Library) and poetry readings (at Café Eclectic) until further notice in accordance with the COVID-19 safety measures being implemented in Memphis/Shelby County. Meetings and readings are online/virtual. ** please contact us if you would like to receive a Google Meet link **
PST-Knoxville and PST-NE have also modified their meetings due to coronavirus; please see their webpages for current/future plans.
January 2021
January 2021 News
We are still looking for Annual Panel Critiquing poems. Members, please submit these to Lori (please click here to submit), so she can send them to the Critiquing Panel ASAP -- I need these by 1/9/21. These poems will be reviewed during PST-West Tennessee's February Meeting on 2/6. All are invited.
During PST-West Tennessee's meeting on 1/2, we had a presentation about common errors encountered when submitting to contests -- including our monthly contests, our annual Festival Contests, and even NFSPS' annual National Contests. For a copy of the presentation, click here. Please note that problems with your submission can result in your disqualification...so please be very careful when preparing your poems for any contest!!!
A reminder to all that our Student Contests are still ongoing! Poems for the elementary division and Eye Poems for all divisions are due 2/15. Please see our student contest page for more information. Student Contest Winners will be announced at our April Meeting, which will be held virtually. See our PST-West Tennessee Events Page for more information.
We have scheduled our online poetry readings for January-May. These will be 7-8:30 Central time on the following dates:
All are invited (members and non-members). Please contact us if you would like to receive a Google Meet link. Plan on having several poems ready to share!
New edition of NFSPS' Strophes available here. For additional information on news in the Northeast and Knoxville chapters, please see their websites.
December 2020
December News
Announcing a special contest!!! Janet Qually has announced a Tennessee-resident challenge. This contest is open to all residents of Tennessee, click here for more information.
REMINDER THAT STUDENT CONTEST DEADLINES ARE APPROACHING FAST!!! SEE OUR STUDENT CONTEST PAGE FOR DETAILS!!!!
Announcing our Annual Panel Critiquing, which will be held at PST-West Tennessee's February 6, 2021 meeting!!! Our panel needs member submissions for review. These are UNFINISHED, UNPUBLISHED POEMS, not award winners. All poems will be critiqued anonymously. For our new members/non-members, a panel of our most senior poets provides feedback on submitted poems (no restrictions on forms, subjects, etc.). Members, if you would like a poem to be considered, please email your poem for consideration (please click here to submit) no later than 1/9/2021. Any form, any subject welcome. This is a great session -- a fantastic learning experience. Members from all chapters (and at-large members) are welcome to submit and attend.
The 2019/2020 PST anthology Tennessee Voices is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-a-Million. First-place winners from our monthly, student, and festival contests are included, as well as select poems from PST Patrons. See our Publications Page for links to all three online vendors. Many thanks to our Anthology Committee (Rose Klix, Janet Qually, Matthew Gilbert, and Pamela Watson) for all of their hard work.
November 2020
November News
West Tennessee discussed technical information about NFSPS's BlackBerry Peach Prize. BBP info here; link to NFSPS BBP contest information here.
October 2020
Announcing our 2020 Poet Laureate, Gretchen McCroskey, of PST-Northeast! Calvin Ross, PST-NE President, Rose Klix, Founder of PST-NE and PST Liaison, and the PST-NE leadership team made the presentation at their September 26, 2020 meeting; our Poet Laureate was announced to our wider membership at our Virtual Festival. Click here for more!
PST held its 64th Annual Festival on October 24th Virtually; see our Festival page for additional details.
October Reminders
September 2020
September 2020 news
September 2020 Board Meeting
June-July -August 2020
Many of our members are on "summer break". Check with chapter news for specifics on meeting information. Remember that physical, in-person meetings and readings have been suspended due to COVID-19. Chapters will be scheduling virtual/online meetings for the foreseeable future.
Summer news:
July News
June News
May 2020
Thank you to PST-NE outgoing President Rose Klix for this history of the PST-NE Chapter. Please read and celebrate the success and growth of PST-NE!
May 2020 news
Congratulations to the boards of PST chapters elected for the upcoming 2020/2021 year! See the May news link (above) for additional details.
Remember that membership dues were due on May 1. Please return the membership registration form (click here for a copy) to your local chapter.
Members may submit PATRON POEMS for inclusion in our annual anthology, Tennessee Voices. For $15, patrons may submit up to 3 poems to the selection committee. Submission requirements for 2020:
April 2020
April 2020 news
Due to coronavirus, the National Convention in Kansas City in June has been cancelled. Please click here for a link to the NSFPS letter discussing the cancellation. Please note that:
April 2020 Quarterly Board Meeting Minutes
March 2020
Congratulations to our 2019/2020 Student Contest Winners (click to see results). Teachers/students, if you have not heard from our Student Contest Coordinator (Frances Cowden) yet, please contact her by clicking here. Check back in August 2020 for our 2020/2021 student contest.
March News
PST-West Tennessee Board Meeting Minutes
Remember we still need festival sponsors click here for Festival Contest Sponsorship Forms
It's time for all chapters to have Board elections. Click here for the West Tennessee Board 2020/2021 Ballot -- Return at the April meeting!!
Note -- PST-NE and PST-Knoxville, please see your website/Facebook page for information on your Board elections. Click here for Northeast and Knoxville.
Note for West Tennessee's April meeting (Saturday, April 4) -- this will be our Student Awards. No meeting at the White Station Public Library. Please meet at Colonial Park United Methodist Church, 2-4 PM. Members -- bring cookies and drinks for our student guests!
February 2020
February news
It’s that time again…we need sponsorships for our annual festival contests, to be held in conjunction with our 64th annual festival. The due date for all sponsorship submissions is March 15th. Click here for a sponsorship form. We had a lot of very positive feedback from out-of-town and non-PST poets last year, complimenting all of our sponsors on the broad variety of contests (subjects and forms). Let’s give them a lot of wonderful options again this year!
Note that contest winners are identified in each month's news.
COVID-19 announcement
PST-West Tennessee is suspending regular monthly meetings (at the White Station Public Library) and poetry readings (at Café Eclectic) until further notice in accordance with the COVID-19 safety measures being implemented in Memphis/Shelby County. Meetings and readings are online/virtual. ** please contact us if you would like to receive a Google Meet link **
PST-Knoxville and PST-NE have also modified their meetings due to coronavirus; please see their webpages for current/future plans.
January 2021
January 2021 News
We are still looking for Annual Panel Critiquing poems. Members, please submit these to Lori (please click here to submit), so she can send them to the Critiquing Panel ASAP -- I need these by 1/9/21. These poems will be reviewed during PST-West Tennessee's February Meeting on 2/6. All are invited.
During PST-West Tennessee's meeting on 1/2, we had a presentation about common errors encountered when submitting to contests -- including our monthly contests, our annual Festival Contests, and even NFSPS' annual National Contests. For a copy of the presentation, click here. Please note that problems with your submission can result in your disqualification...so please be very careful when preparing your poems for any contest!!!
A reminder to all that our Student Contests are still ongoing! Poems for the elementary division and Eye Poems for all divisions are due 2/15. Please see our student contest page for more information. Student Contest Winners will be announced at our April Meeting, which will be held virtually. See our PST-West Tennessee Events Page for more information.
We have scheduled our online poetry readings for January-May. These will be 7-8:30 Central time on the following dates:
- January 21
- February 18
- March 18
- April 15
- May 13
All are invited (members and non-members). Please contact us if you would like to receive a Google Meet link. Plan on having several poems ready to share!
New edition of NFSPS' Strophes available here. For additional information on news in the Northeast and Knoxville chapters, please see their websites.
December 2020
December News
Announcing a special contest!!! Janet Qually has announced a Tennessee-resident challenge. This contest is open to all residents of Tennessee, click here for more information.
REMINDER THAT STUDENT CONTEST DEADLINES ARE APPROACHING FAST!!! SEE OUR STUDENT CONTEST PAGE FOR DETAILS!!!!
Announcing our Annual Panel Critiquing, which will be held at PST-West Tennessee's February 6, 2021 meeting!!! Our panel needs member submissions for review. These are UNFINISHED, UNPUBLISHED POEMS, not award winners. All poems will be critiqued anonymously. For our new members/non-members, a panel of our most senior poets provides feedback on submitted poems (no restrictions on forms, subjects, etc.). Members, if you would like a poem to be considered, please email your poem for consideration (please click here to submit) no later than 1/9/2021. Any form, any subject welcome. This is a great session -- a fantastic learning experience. Members from all chapters (and at-large members) are welcome to submit and attend.
The 2019/2020 PST anthology Tennessee Voices is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-a-Million. First-place winners from our monthly, student, and festival contests are included, as well as select poems from PST Patrons. See our Publications Page for links to all three online vendors. Many thanks to our Anthology Committee (Rose Klix, Janet Qually, Matthew Gilbert, and Pamela Watson) for all of their hard work.
November 2020
November News
West Tennessee discussed technical information about NFSPS's BlackBerry Peach Prize. BBP info here; link to NFSPS BBP contest information here.
October 2020
Announcing our 2020 Poet Laureate, Gretchen McCroskey, of PST-Northeast! Calvin Ross, PST-NE President, Rose Klix, Founder of PST-NE and PST Liaison, and the PST-NE leadership team made the presentation at their September 26, 2020 meeting; our Poet Laureate was announced to our wider membership at our Virtual Festival. Click here for more!
PST held its 64th Annual Festival on October 24th Virtually; see our Festival page for additional details.
October Reminders
September 2020
September 2020 news
September 2020 Board Meeting
June-July -August 2020
Many of our members are on "summer break". Check with chapter news for specifics on meeting information. Remember that physical, in-person meetings and readings have been suspended due to COVID-19. Chapters will be scheduling virtual/online meetings for the foreseeable future.
Summer news:
July News
June News
May 2020
Thank you to PST-NE outgoing President Rose Klix for this history of the PST-NE Chapter. Please read and celebrate the success and growth of PST-NE!
May 2020 news
Congratulations to the boards of PST chapters elected for the upcoming 2020/2021 year! See the May news link (above) for additional details.
Remember that membership dues were due on May 1. Please return the membership registration form (click here for a copy) to your local chapter.
Members may submit PATRON POEMS for inclusion in our annual anthology, Tennessee Voices. For $15, patrons may submit up to 3 poems to the selection committee. Submission requirements for 2020:
- Each patron poem can be no longer than 40 lines
- Patron poems must be submitted as a Word or PDF file
- Each patron poem must have poet’s ID in the upper right corner
- Upper left corner, please indicate “Patron Poem Submission”
April 2020
April 2020 news
Due to coronavirus, the National Convention in Kansas City in June has been cancelled. Please click here for a link to the NSFPS letter discussing the cancellation. Please note that:
- all awards which were to be presented at the Convention (the 2 CUP manuscripts, the Stevens manuscript, and the Blackberry Peach Awards) have been judged and they will still be awarded
- the 53 contests are being processed and will be judged and awarded
- Encore will still be published for 2020
April 2020 Quarterly Board Meeting Minutes
March 2020
Congratulations to our 2019/2020 Student Contest Winners (click to see results). Teachers/students, if you have not heard from our Student Contest Coordinator (Frances Cowden) yet, please contact her by clicking here. Check back in August 2020 for our 2020/2021 student contest.
March News
PST-West Tennessee Board Meeting Minutes
Remember we still need festival sponsors click here for Festival Contest Sponsorship Forms
It's time for all chapters to have Board elections. Click here for the West Tennessee Board 2020/2021 Ballot -- Return at the April meeting!!
Note -- PST-NE and PST-Knoxville, please see your website/Facebook page for information on your Board elections. Click here for Northeast and Knoxville.
Note for West Tennessee's April meeting (Saturday, April 4) -- this will be our Student Awards. No meeting at the White Station Public Library. Please meet at Colonial Park United Methodist Church, 2-4 PM. Members -- bring cookies and drinks for our student guests!
February 2020
February news
It’s that time again…we need sponsorships for our annual festival contests, to be held in conjunction with our 64th annual festival. The due date for all sponsorship submissions is March 15th. Click here for a sponsorship form. We had a lot of very positive feedback from out-of-town and non-PST poets last year, complimenting all of our sponsors on the broad variety of contests (subjects and forms). Let’s give them a lot of wonderful options again this year!
