Poems, poems, poems...

What a wonderful outpouring of poems we received for our Spirit First poetry contest for 2011…our contest closed on January 31, and now we are holding 1,022 poems from 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 26 foreign countries. How beautiful this is! The state most represented is California with 105 poems, followed by New York with 84 entries. We received poems from a couple of states we didn’t hear from last year, like Alaska and North Dakota (we welcome you!).

We are especially honored and deeply pleased to receive poems from our international writers. We received 26 poems from India, followed by Canada with 24 entries. We received poems from all across the United Kingdom, including England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Other nations we heard from include Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, France, Romania, Thailand, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Dubai, Uganda, Pakistan, and Turkey. (We also received a few poems without locations indicated.)

Our poetry reviewing committee is busy reading each entry (thank you, team, for this is a very big work…), which will take several weeks. Winners will be announced by March 31 and will be posted on our website at www.SpiritFirst.org as well as here on our blog.

Thank you, all, for sharing with us your words, your thoughts, and your hearts. We are grateful for your generosity and blessed by your presence.