Call For Poetry

The call for poetry for 2023 is now open and will be open until July 31. We invite poets to join us for a walk through Beals Preserve, where you will find art installations from local and regional artists. Experience the art and then respond to it in a poem. The top 32 poems submitted (two for each art work) will be published in the seventh edition of Art on The Trails, due out in September 2023. Selected poets will receive a free copy of the chapbook.

How it works:

  • Visit Beals Preserve, see the installations, and be inspired by their work. A guide to the art will be posted and available here after installation.
  • If you can not visit the Preserve, you can also view videos by the artists our our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@artonthetrails)
  • Free guided walks will be offered through the month of July.  
  • Write ekphrastic poetry, which is written specifically about or inspired by the installations in this exhibition.
  • Poetry Submissions will be accepted from June through July, 2023

The top 32 poems will be sent to our final judge. Our judge will choose a first prize winner who will receive a $100 prize.

This year’s judge is Joanne DeSimone Reynolds. Joanne is the author of two chapbooks: Brought to Our Knees, a collection of fifteen ekphrastic poems in collaboration with the artists of 2020 Art Ramble in Concord, Ma which can be viewed at theumbrellaarts.org, and Comes a Blossom published by Main Street Rag in 2014. Her poems have appeared in Salamander, Sanctuary, Ekphrastic Review, The New Verse News, Lyrical Somerville, Bagel Bards Anthology, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Birdsong. She has written reviews for Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene and was a long-time contributor to the Plein Air Poetry chapbooks at Old Frog Pond Farm and Studio in Harvard, Ma.