Congratulations to Mark Creaven, NEPC poet! (also note the call for submissions related to Vermont)

Prestigious Awards Include First-Ever Prize for Poetry and Collaboration Between GMP and Vermont Magazine to Honor Writing About Vermont

26 June 2020

COLCHESTER, Vt. – Green Mountain Power (GMP) and Vermont Magazine announced  Mark Creaven of West Glover is  the 2020 winner of the Vermont Writers’ Prize  for his poem, “Time in Vermont.” His work appears in the Summer issue of Vermont Magazine.  This is the first year a specific poetry honor has been awarded.

“The great English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer famously stated, ‘Time and tide wait for no man.’ The winner of this year’s poetry contest similarly riffs on time, change, and missed opportunity in ‘Time in Vermont’.  The poem perfectly captures the shared experience that comes with age; the understanding that nothing lasts forever,” said Joshua Sherman, Publisher of Vermont Magazine. “’ 

The growing number of poems entered in the contest over the last few years, and their consistent high quality, convinced the organizers to create an individual poetry prize starting this year. Creaven’s poem makes the Vermont countryside pop to life. A shed, an iconic silhouette along many Vermont roadways, is a central feature of this poem and Creaven was inspired by one in Waterbury. It begins:

It stood solid

In the middle of a disused field

On Route 100.

Its slate grey cedar slats and shakes

Weathered from the years

Of storm and heat.

“It was a tough competition this year, and one of the best parts of this contest is seeing how the writers weave details about Vermont and its people into their work. As a judge you see the tremendous talent of local writers that bring this great state to life right on the page,” said Brian Otley, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at GMP and also one of the judges.

The Prize is a collaboration between Vermont Magazine and Green Mountain Power to recognize writing about Vermont and Vermonters, while honoring the literary legacy of the late Ralph Nading Hill Jr., a Vermont historian and writer and long-time member of Green Mountain Power’s Board of Directors. It is considered by Vermont writers to be one of the state’s premier literary prizes.

Entries for the 2021 Writers’ Prize are now being accepted. The deadline to enter is January 1, 2021. Entrants may be amateur or professional writers. Submissions can include essays, short stories and poems that focus on “Vermont – Its People, Its Places, Its History or Its Values.” Entries must be unpublished and less than 1,500 words long. Individuals may submit only one entry. Employees of Vermont Magazine or Green Mountain Power and previous winners are ineligible.

Vermont Magazine’s Summer issue is on sale now.