Poetry in Plain Sight is a new program created to bring poetry – perhaps your poetry – to downtown Winston-Salem, on the street and perhaps in your office. Four poems will be chosen each month and displayed on posters in sixteen shop windows throughout Winston-Salem’s Arts and Entertainment District.
The aim is to bring poetry to a wider audience, and to support North Carolina poets. The program is a collaboration among Winston-Salem Writers, Press 53, Delta Arts Center, Barnhill’s Books, and Competitive Edge, Inc; and is supported by DADA, the Downtown Arts District Association of Winston-Salem.
New poems go up in downtown windows around the first of every month – see the downtown map here. Poetry in Plain Sight extends the Word Up! Program that the late Rodney Holman created for Winston-Salem Transit Authority buses; he was a Board Director of Winston-Salem Writers and one of this program’s prime movers. Rodney was instrumental in arts and education organizations throughout North Carolina; you can read his bio here. Select posters can be purchased at Art Pear Gallery in the Community Arts Café, downtown Winston-Salem.
Here’s how to enter your poem:
- You must be a resident of North Carolina.
- You can submit one poem per month for consideration.
- Your poem can be no longer than 20 lines. It can be an excerpt from a longer poem.
- Attach your poem (in a black 12-point standard font) as a Word Document attachment to an email addressed to poems@wswriters.org.
- Include your name, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number, as well as the title of the poem in the e-mail. If the poem appears in a published book, the book title should also be included.
- Poems that are overtly political or religious in nature, or poems that are not appropriate for all ages, will not be considered for this program.
- Four poems will be chosen each month by Sam Barbee of Winston-Salem Writers and Kevin Watson of Press 53. Authors will be contacted only if their poem has been selected for the program. Only one poem per author per year can be selected.
- The program is not asking for exclusive rights; therefore, the author is free to submit the poem elsewhere for consideration during and after submission and/or selection. By submitting, the author agrees to grant Winston-Salem Writers one-time publication rights for its Poetry in Plain Sight program. The copyright of individual poems remains with the author.
Here’s how to get your logo onto the posters:
For a small fee, organizations can sponsor Poetry in Plain Sight for one month; your logo will be displayed on all 16 posters that month. (Contact poems@wswriters.org for more information.)
Here’s how to get the posters displayed in your office:
Organizations who wish to participate in the Poetry in Plain Sight program by posting poems inside their offices or buildings should contact poems@wswriters.org for more information.
Monthly Sponsors Have Included:
