The Citron Review

The Summer 2015 poetry selections will be in honor of Carl Sandburg. Sandburg is a national icon — a poet who lived his life with integrity and concern for humankind. This was a poet who spent twenty years in Chicago — “…Shoveling / Wrecking / Planning…” before daring to write about it. This was a poet who saw Abraham Lincoln as both “…steel and velvet… who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.” Sandburg read before Congress, championed civil rights before it was cool, and retired to a goat farm in Flat Rock, North Carolina with his wife, Lillian. 

This is a contest to write poems in the spirit of Sandburg. There is an entry fee of $10.

Send us three to five poems that you feel channel his spirit. Poems can be submitted in a single document or uploaded separately. Our normal line limits (30 lines per poem) still apply.

The winner will receive $250, publication and mention in The Friends of Carl Sandburg at Connemara newsletter. Three other finalists will receive publication alongside the winning poem.

Any remaining funds (after the $250 grand prize) will go to a Collections Management Intern/archivist fund for The Carl Sandburg Estate in Flat Rock, NC. Currently, there is one archivist in charge of Sandburg’s personal effects, which total over 300,000 documents. 

*Quoted material excerpted from Sandburg’s “Chicago” and from other Sandburg quotations.

Size limit: No more than one hundred (100) words.

Submissions should be no more than one hundred (100) words.

You may submit up to five (5) micro-fiction selections per quarter.

If submitting multiple selections at once, please submit each selection as a separate document.

Size limit: No more than one thousand (1,000) words

Submissions should be no more than one thousand (1,000) words.

You may submit up to two (2) flash-fiction selections per quarter.

If submitting multiple selections at once, please attach each selection as a separate document.

Size limit: No more than one thousand (1,000) words

Submissions should be no more than one thousand (1,000) words.

All genres of non-fiction (memoir, essay, articles, reviews etc.) are acceptable. You may submit up to two (2) Creative Non-Fiction selections per quarter.

If submitting multiple selections at once, please attach each selection as a separate document.

Size limit: No more than thirty (30) lines

Submissions should be no more than thirty (30) lines.

You may submit up to five (5) poetry selections per quarter.

If submitting multiple selections at once, please attach each selection as a separate document.