DEAR FILIPINO POETS WORLDWIDE

I usually do this every December but got so swamped I dropped the ball. So I'm belatedly but cheerfully doing this now by popular request -- after all, it's ever a Holiday! on Galatea's mountain:

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Bino A. Realuyo
Deadline: February 15, 2009

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Bino A. Realuyo is the author of the poetry collection, THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR, the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for poetry 2005 (University of Utah Press 2006 and Anvil Press, Philippines 2008).   Prior to publication, his poetry appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, Manoa, and The Nation.  He received Poetry Society of America's Lucille Medwick Memorial Award and a Van Lier Fellowship in poetry.  He is working on a second poetry collection titled, ON WHICH THE SUMMER LEANS, about the experiences of his father as a survivor of the Death March and a Japanese Concentration camp during World War 2 in the Philippines.  He is currently pursuing graduate studies in education and technology and is a fellow in social entrepreneurship at Harvard University.  He is also an accidental fictionist and suffers from a multiple literary personality/genre syndrome.  He loves facebook.

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Bino A. Realuyo, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit - it doesn't matter whether you're established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

MORE INFORMATION about the contest is available HERE.

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)