741 poems in my lap

I could not have imagined a more beautiful response to my request for submissions of poetry on the themes of meditation and mindfulness. I have 741 poems in my lap (our contest is now closed...), and such beautiful works they are. Because we have so many good writings to choose from, we will pursue our plans for creating a book manuscript. I began talking with printers today.

We received entries from 42 states in the United States, with the state most represented being New York (80 entries) followed by California (51 entries). The state of Utah had one single entry (for which I am deeply grateful...). We received 31 poems that did not have location information so perhaps the 8 missing states are represented there.

We received entries from 23 foreign countries including Armenia, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Scotland, South Africa, Turkey, Wales (Cymru). Canada came in with 21 entries, India with 18, and South Africa with 11. I am especially pleased and proud of our participating poets who have a different mother tongue. Thank you for making this extra effort to express your poetry in our English language.

Thank you, everyone, for your amazing, beautiful writings. Your words are a light into the world.