Keith Flynn

North and South Carolina poets have two weeks left in which to submit entries for the eighth annual Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. Adult and high school poets are invited to submit entries with the chance to win cash awards.

Asheville poet and founder and editor of Asheville Poetry Review, Keith Flynn, will make final selections in this year’s competition. First, second and third place prizes will be awarded in each category. An awards ceremony, hosted by Flynn, will be held Saturday, April 23, at Lanier Library followed by a reception.

Flynn has published three collections of poems, The Talking Drum, The Book of Monsters and The Lost Sea. His poems have appeared in many prestigious journals.

“The best poems,” he said in his 2008 essay, The Imagination as a Redemptive Force, “stop us in our tracks, shut us up, make us read the poem again and again, because it has suddenly opened another room in our brain that was hidden to us before.”

For information about guidelines or to submit your poems online, visit www.lanierlib.org. Entries may also be mailed. Deadline is March 1.

-Submitted by Gina Malone