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Reading the beautiful poem “Cinnamon Toast” by Philip Lee Williams (find it here), called to mind the wide range of spices & seasonings we rely on to make life more exciting, interesting, and tasty. Let’s share our favorites in the Silver Birch Press SPICES & SEASONINGS Poetry Series. (Deadline: 9/30/23)

PROMPT: Share your your thoughts on spices & seasonings in a poem of any reasonable length. What we like: First-person narrative poems that offer insight into the author’s life, mind, thoughts, feelings. It may help to focus on a single spice or seasoning — rather than offer thoughts in general. What we don’t like: Didactic poems and most rhyming poetry (we make exceptions for poetic forms such as villanelles and pantoums). Note: One poem per author, please.

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media. We are a nonprofit blog and offer no monetary compensation to contributors—the main benefit to you is that we will publicize your work to our 10,000+ followers. If your poem was previously published, please tell us where/when so we can credit the original publisher.

WHEN: We’ll feature the poems on the Silver Birch Press blog during the SPICES & SEASONINGS Poetry Series starting in August 2023. We’ll also feature the poetry on Facebook. (For now, we’ve suspended our Twitter [X] account.)

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send ONE MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, email address). Also list your home state or country.

3. In the same MS Word document, include a one-paragraph author’s bio, written in the third person. You’re encouraged to include links to your books, websites, and social media accounts — we want to help promote you!

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem or creative process written in the first person (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. Send a photo of yourself as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). Title the photo with your last name (e.g., Jones1.jpg, Jones2.jpg).

6. Email to sbpsubmissions@gmail.com—and put “SPICES & SEASONINGS” in the subject line. Please allow several weeks for our reply.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Saturday, September 30, 2023

Photo by Marion Botella on Unsplash