You have until midnight tomorrow (Tuesday, 7/31) to enter your poem into my 2nd Annual Poetry Contest.
The contest is heating up and we have some very talented poets out there!
…and some awesome prizes! We are giving away money, publishing, promotion, books and more! DO NOT miss out on this. There is NO entry fee to enter.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ENTRANCE GUIDELINES BY CLICKING HERE.
Submit a poem on self-love / self-care in some way, subscribe to the email list (you need to subscribe so you get updates on the contest) and then email your poem to: yecheilyah(at)yecheilyahysrayl(dot)com
I am honored to introduce to you our Grand Prize Winner of my first poetry contest!
First, a special thank you to Colleen and Lisa for helping me to put this together. With my schedule, I could not have done it without you two! Family, please go ahead and follow their blogs. You WON’T be disappointed!
Next, I would like to thank everyone who entered as well as those of you who shared this contest. It is not easy to “stand” up here and do something like this so thank you for your support.
Drumm Rollll…
Congratulations to Merril D. Smith for her poem “Zora Neale Hurston.”
Not only did it touch on our theme, but it embodied so much of Zora that I felt like if I didn’t know who she was before, I did now. Here’s what Colleen had to say:
“The author captured the essence of Zora and her strength to fight for the rights of African American women as if she was able to channel her bright spirit through the written word. Splendid imagery and descriptions. When I close my eyes, I can see Zora in all her glory!”
My favorite lines are:
“…her soul crawls out
from its hiding place
time and distance cannot shrink
her words…” – Colleen Chesebro
Whoop! Merril, here’s what you’ve won!
Amazon Giftcard
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (hardcover)
From When I was a Black Girl by Yecheilyah Ysrayl (paperback)
And Still, I Rise by Maya Angelou (paperback)
Your Poem on this Blog
Social Media Support
Please tell us a little bit about yourself:
Author Photo: Merril D. Smith.
MDS: Thank you so much, Yecheilyah Ysrayl, Colleen Chesebro, and Lisa W. Tetting! I am honored to have been selected as the Grand Prize Winner for this poetry contest.
My name is Merril D. Smith. I live in National Park, NJ, which is a small borough right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. I’m an independent scholar with a Ph.D. in American history, but my blog is mostly a poetry blog. Poetry is my creative outlet, though it is something I’ve come to only within the past few years. Perhaps I needed some life experience and time to reflect, but now my muse says, “write poetry.”
Do you have any poetry collections out Merril?
MDS: I don’t have a poetry book out yet, but it’s coming! I’m currently finishing up two reference books on rape. My other books are available on Amazon and other sites.
Before we get to your poem, please tell us a little bit about it. What inspired this piece?
MDS: The theme of the poetry contest was the Harlem Renaissance. I chose to write about Zora Neale Hurston because I think she was a brilliant and fascinating woman. She lied about her age (saying she was younger than she was) so that she could finish high school. Then she went on to study anthropology with Franz Boas, and she chose to do fieldwork on Afro-American folklore. She was said to have made an entrance when she entered a party, and in the photos, I’ve seen of her, she’s often wearing a hat. She definitely had a way with words, so I used some of her lines within the poem. Though she won some acclaim in her life, she did not earn wealth, and she died in poverty. Alice Walker is credited with “rediscovering” Hurston and paid to have a grave stone placed on Hurston’s unmarked grave.
Once again Merril, thanks so much for participating in our contest and sharing your heart with us. Without further ado, everyone we give you:
This poetry contest is sponsored by Yecheilyah of Literary Korner Publishing and the release of Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One). Pick up your copy of Renaissance today. Click here.
Regrettably, I am not going to make it to the convention. I’ve tried as best I could but it’s just not feasible. I did, however, make it to Florida and am so far enjoying spending time with the family. Upon my return home, I will have the results of the Thunderclap campaign as promised and my thoughts on the overall experience from set-up to launch.
For now, I’m still celebrating the launch and feeling great. I’d like to take this time while I am sitting here and announce the winners of The Nora White Giveaway. If you didn’t win, no worries, I am anticipating another, more organized, giveaway real soon.
Without further ado, here are our winners:
Congratulations to:
Natashia Crawford
and
Dora Gold
You have won one paperback copy of Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One), signed by me with matching bookmark and my author seal as well as a $10 Amazon Gift-card. You will be contacted through email with more information on receiving your prizes. Congrats again!
In the meantime, stay tuned for tomorrow’s episode of Introduce Yourself. I will be traveling but the author is going to hold it down. She is a wealth of information. You don’t want to miss it.
I am proud to announce the Grand Prize Winner of The Stella Trilogy Spring Giveaway! Today’s winner is really special and close to my heart, its my baby sister! Abiyah Ysrayl aka Princess. It was hard gathering pics of her where she’s actually smiling! LOL I know you a warrior baby girl but I need you to show those pearly whites today cause you did that. Abiyah is so supportive and it paid off. This contest was so perfect but I’ll detail that in the next post. So anyway, baby sis was Entry #77 which is funny because she’s a twin AND she snagged the #1 Spot so she got her double portion prize.
Before I head to lunch, I just thought you should know there are 13 whole days left to enter for your chance to win in The Stella Spring Giveaway. A $25 Amazon Gift-card (Not an e-card, the real thing! You’ll even get a specialty gift box!) and all three paperback copies of my Trilogy (signed and with my special seal!) PLUS matching bookmarks…there’s a lot at stake here!
AND
You can UNLOCK bonus entries when you support my social media. Don’t wait until the last minute!
This was such a difficult decision that I decided to wait until the end of November to announce this month’s Freebie Giveaway. As I have stated, I am picking two winners of a free $10 Barnes & Noble eGiftcard: one supporter from the PBS Facebook Page and one supporter from followers of the actual PBS Blog. It really boiled down to 3 main supporters. Their constant interaction continued to make this a very close call. In the end, I stuck with those who’ve been persistent in this support for this month. I need the following people to verify their e-mail address to ahouseofpoetry@gmail.com for your FREE Barnes & Noble e-gift card. Congratulations to:
Constance aka TehilaYah
This is a sista who supports everything that I do. Wherever I am online she is right there following. The sista is following me on sound cloud and I don’t even have anything posted lol. That’s just how dedicated she is and I love her dearly. She’s usually the first one interacting with our FB page, the first to like a post, and she also supports the actual book series Pearls Before Swine (for those who didn’t already know this is also the title to my book series), keeping in contact, her inquiries into the progress of Part 2 keeps me on my toes. Congrats Sis!
The Chatty Rachel at:
What I like most about blogging is that I get to meet a lot of new people and I get to network on a variety of different levels. I have followers who are professional chefs thanks to Recipe Sunday, subscribers who are learning different languages, professional bloggers, editors, etc. One Blogger in particular I would like to highlight is The Chatty Rachel at: https://rachelbeingchatty.wordpress.com/author/thechattyrachel/
Rachel is a big supporter in the LIKE department with a funny blog of her own that has gained over 2,000 followers (Her About Pagehttps://rachelbeingchatty.wordpress.com/about/ ). Everything I post to my blog she likes. Her support proves that any amount of support is appreciated. Whether you subscribe to the blog, like the FB page or interact with the blog itself, every body part that does it’s job provides enough energy to keep the body moving and to keep it strong. By liking the content on this website, you help me to further understand whether or not the content is not just constant, but helpful in some way. It is because of the constant likes and comments that I know that this work is not in vain.
