String Poet is pleased to announce the results of the 2012 String Poet Prize, as chosen by final judge Kim Bridgford. We thank all those who entered, and offer congratulations to the winners, honorable mentions, and finalists.
First Prize:
“Upkeep” – J.D. Smith
Second Place:
“The Strauses Return to Broadway” – Patricia Brody
Third Place:
“Palimpsest: Fez” – Maxine Silverman
Honorable Mentions:
“Mourning at the Kaldi Café” – Carol Louise Munn
“The Taste of Tea” – Muriel Harris Weinstein
Look for these folks, along with other String Poet Prize finalists and fine poets in the forthcoming issue of String Poet, and also see our 2012 String Poet Prize Award Ceremony.
Annabelle Moseley is the author of one full-length collection and six chapbooks of poetry, a young adult novel, and a collection of children’s poetry. Her full-length collection: The Clock of the Long Now, was published in January 2012 by David Robert Books. Her most recent chapbooks are A Field Guide to the Muses (Finishing Line Press, 2009), and The Divine Tour (forthcoming 2012, Finishing Line Press). The first Walt Whitman Birthplace Writer-in-Residence, 2009-2010, Moseley is also founder and editor of String Poet, an online literary journal of poetry and the arts, and the host of The New York Times-featured String Poet Studio Series and founder of the national String Poet Prize. She is also a Lecturer at St. Joseph’s College. Moseley has published hundreds of poems internationally in such journals as The Texas Review, The Seventh Quarry (Wales), Marsh Hawk Review, and Mezzo Cammin, among others. Her first three chapbooks of poetry, published from 2005 to 2008 include: The Moon is a Lemon (Birnham Wood), Artifacts of Sound (Street Press), and Still Life (Street Press). Annabelle Moseley’s fourth chapbook is First and Last Things, a shared collection with the Welsh poet J. C. Evans, published jointly in New York and Wales by Cross-Cultural Communications. Moseley won first place in the 2008 Writer’s Digest Poetry Contest and a 2008 Amy Award from Poets & Writers.
Mr. Schaff is a free-lance violinist in the greater New York area and performs regularly as a tenured member with many of the leading symphony, opera, and ballet ensembles in the region, in addition to frequent chamber and recital collaborations. In recent seasons he has appeared with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra on their North American tour, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Stamford Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and on Broadway in “The Producers” and “Wicked”, and in Paul Shaffer’s orchestra on “The Late Show” with David Letterman. He is the concertmaster of the SONOS Chamber Orchestra in New York City. His second CD of vocal chamber music with tenor Martin Dillon was released in 2004 on Ganymede Records, and he is currently working on a recording project which juxtaposes contemporary music for solo violin with Bach’s B minor Partita, as well as recent live performances with pianists Richard Alston and Thomas Carlo Bo, which explore unjustly neglected works of the grand Romantic tradition of the 19th century. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Englewood Chamber Players, a non-profit organization which brings together some of the finest musicians in the New York area who perform music of the highest caliber for the communities in which they live, as well as traveling to those unable to attend traditional concerts.
Linda Opyr is the Nassau County Poet Laureate (2011-2013). She is the author of six collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers, including The Hudson Review, The Atlanta Review, The Paterson Literary Review, and The New York Times. Dr. Opyr holds a Doctor of Arts degree in English and American Literature from St. John’s University. She is an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College and chairs the English Department at Sewanhaka High School.
Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-2011, Gayl Teller received an MA from Columbia University and another MA from Queens College, CUNY. Her poetry collections are At the Intersection of Everything You Have Ever Loved, Shorehaven, Moving Day, One Small Kindness, and most recently, Inside the Embrace, which was selected in national competition and published by WordTech/Cherry Grove in 2010. She is the editor of Toward Forgiveness, an anthology of poems (Writers Ink Press, 2011).
Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr. was the first Poet Laureate of Nassau County (2007-2009). In 1980 he received the first Herman Melville Annual Award from the New York State Marine Education Assocation, whose journal, Ripples, he edited for many years. Author of several poetry chapbooks, he is known for his support of the Paumanok Poets, and tireless encouragement of young writers. For years he conducted an October salt marsh (when the marsh’s Spartina grasses turn golden) round-robin participatory poetry reading program at Cedarmere, Roslyn Harbor, home of the 19th Century poet William Cullen Bryant, where Maxwell volunteered in programming.
Janet Packer has established a unique career as a concert violinist and educator. Her performances demonstrate a mastery of a wide range of musical styles. As soloist with orchestra, recitalist, and recording artist, Ms. Packer’s musical intelligence and personality have won the accolades of audiences, critics, and musical colleagues. Janet Packer’s major orchestral appearances include performances with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony of Panama, Rochester Philharmonic, and Boston Pops Orchestra. She was chair of the Conservatory string department of the Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for twelve years. She gives frequent master classes at universities, music schools, and string seminars.
Geoffrey Burleson is Director of Piano Studies at Hunter College. Mr. Burleson has performed to wide acclaim throughout Europe and North America, and is equally active as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and jazz performer. The New York Times has hailed his solo performances as “vibrant and compelling”, furthermore praising his “rhythmic brio, projection of rhapsodic qualities, appropriate sense of spontaneity, and rich colorings.” A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and Stony Brook University (D.M.A.), his principal teachers include Gilbert Kalish, Leonard Shure, Veronica Jochum, Lillian Freundlich, Tinka Knopf, and Audrey Bart Brown.
Final Judge: Kim Bridgford. Dr. Bridgford is the director of both the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester Poetry Conference. She is editor-in-chief of Mezzo Cammin, and founder of the Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project, designed to become the world’s largest database of women poets. She is the founder of the literary journal Dogwood, and is the author of five collections of poetry, including In The Extreme, winner of the Donald Justice Prize.
Barry has performed with Celine Dion in a concert for children in Perth, and with Andrea Bocelli, Sara Brightman, Lara Fabian and Katherine McPhee at an exclusive concert at the Dallas Country Club. Barry has performed on the QE2, has toured with the African Children’s Choir, and has guest starred at the New South Wales Premier’s Concerts in the Sydney Entertainment Center- an event that attracted over thirty thousand patrons. However, his most memorable touring performance was a concert in Tirano — a little village high up in the Italian Alps where his ancestors once lived. Having released previous CDs with Sony Music Australia as well as his own label, Barry’s latest recording project is “Treasure Road,” a 24-track double CD collection featuring both well-known and original compositions.
This event was funded in part by Poets and Writers, Inc. with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.