Poets Invited to Submit More Poems of Hope and Reassurance

Regional poets are invited to submit original work for a second collection of poems of hope and reassurance to help sustain people through the current pandemic.

Poet, Lina Belar organized “Poems of Hope and Reassurance” last spring.  Recently, she was awarded a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to continue the project through 2021.  This new grant includes funding for more poetry plus additional advertising and printing, including online.

The first project, which concluded last fall, was supported in part through the Community Emergency Relief Fund, a partnership between Emergency Arts and Springboard for the Arts.  Many of the poems were included on the Poetry Walk at Green Island in Wadena.  A booklet containing all the submissions will available shortly.  They will be distributed free at various locations in the region.

“Poetry is often used as a tool of challenge, to point out a need for improvement. The poetry that is needed for this emergency is one that shows what is right and what can be nurtured if we have the words,” said project leader Lina Belar. “Our communities will survive if we band together in spirit even as we stay apart in space. Poetry can be a way to bind us together.”

Submitted poems can be on any topic. Poems could be for your neighbor or the business down the street, they could be for anyone, anywhere, who is being affected by Coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Send submissions through the Submit a Poem page on the main menu.

CREDIT

Lina Belar is a fiscal year 2021 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT LINA

Lina Belar’s poetry says much about the world, this rural land that she loves, but it also says something about her. Her poetry blends her fierce affection for nature and all its creatures, including the human ones, with a foolish love of language.  Her first chapbook, Rural Score, was published in 2016.