Share a poetic perspective

Every January, Manzanita’s Hoffman Center for the Arts encourages poets with connections to the North Oregon Coast community to submit their work to compete for the Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize.

The current submission window is open through Jan. 31.

The first-place winner will receive $100 and have their poem published, along with the second and third-place winners, on the center’s website.

Poets in all three finishing places will get the chance to read their winning poems at the center during the Airlie Press Poetry Event on Sunday, April 13, which will celebrate the launch of new poetry collections from Airlie Press.

New this year, the contest judge will select up to nine poems to receive an Honorable Mention.  Poems selected will be considered for display in a monthly rotation on the Poetry Post, located in the center’s Wondergarden on Laneda Avenue.

The contest judge this year is Carey Taylor.

Taylor is the author of “Some Aid to Navigation and The Lure of Impermanence.” She is the winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a runner-up for the Concrete Wolf Louis Poetry Book Award and has been published both nationally and internationally. She has a master’s degree in School Counseling from Pacific Lutheran University.

Taylor has lived her entire life in the Pacific Northwest and had the rare childhood experience of living at three lighthouse stations. She currently lives in Portland.

The Hoffman Center is located at 594 Laneda Avenue in Manzanita. For more information and submission guidelines, go to hoffmanarts.org or call 503-368-3846.