A Letter from the Editor to All Contest Participants

Dear Contest Participants,

I am awed and humbled by the level of participation in this year’s Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest, our only fundraising event.  It is thanks to you and your generous support that we will be able further our mission to bring a little more good poetry into the world.  

The contest raised enough in donations for the Review to begin offering honoraria to our guest poets at a professional rate beginning in 2018.  “Going pro” should put Songs of Eretz on a trajectory to be on par with the most prestigious literary journals. Furthermore, it is sure to attract guest poets of the utmost quality and refinement to our cause.

This contest saw the return of many loyal friends from previous years as well as an unprecedented number of new voices.  The large number of early entrants, as well as the significant number of poets who entered the contest multiple times, particularly moved me.  The high quality of the work entered was remarkable as well, making my job as preliminary judge difficult--a nice problem!

I hope that all of you enjoyed your contest experience and found the personal feedback on each of your poems to be of some use.  I know that I enjoyed or will enjoy carefully considering and responding to each and every poem that was submitted (there were many last-minute entries that I still look forward to reading).

Kind regards,

Steve

Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD

Editor