Penny, My dad died a few years before my wedding as well and 15 minutes after reading your poem I am still crying. He was my best friend and i miss him dearly. When i married, i chose a church that had this triangle window high up almost in the rafters at the front of the church. No one could understand why i picked this particular church it was small and old, i finally the day of the wedding revealed to my closest family and friends that it was so my daddy could see me nice and clear. I too would love to use this poem in my wedding album. It takes a big heart for a person to share their words, talent and ability so freely. As you can tell everyone thanks u greatly? Do u have any anniversary poems....my mom in law is standing over my shoudler asking me if u do ...she has to come up with something to say at her parents 50th? :) Thanks again

YOu asked for opinions--mine isn't about the poem itself--as far as the poem goes, whatever YOU feel fills the requirements of the contest is perfect, regardless of what others here may say. However, I've been competing (in another field) for almost 30 years. I know this is a small contest, not the national kind I compete in, but here's my problem with your post. And I say this only because it's good advice for anyone planning on entering a contest. You NEVER share or publish your work before the contest is judged and the winners announced. Often, in the fine print, there's an admonition against submitting published works (and yes, posting on the internet CAN be considered publishing by some sponsors). Even if there isn't, it's always best to keep your entry close to the vest, so to speak, just to protect it. I'd strongly recommend NOT putting your entry on any website at this point in the competition--it could end up costing you the chance to win. Obviously, that's just one opinion. You can certainly do what you want, but you're obviously putting a lot of thought and effort in this. It would be such a shame if someone either stole your entry, or disqualified it because it was easily found with a quick internet search.

lemonhead, thanks for picking up on the research paper/project question. I find the responses very interesting and informative. I'd bet that you still remember more about Bonnie Prince Charlie than many of us ever learned. If I hadn't had a brother who loved Sir Walter Scott's Waverly and anything by Robert Louis Stevenson, I would have gone through elementary and secondary school without hearing a thing about the Jacobites. I took an anthropology class in gender language differences and found it both fascinating and dismaying. For instance, females often have a 'voice' they speak with around other females, but if a male enters an otherwise all-female group some of the gals' voices change immediately (often becoming breathier), no matter if the females are eight or eighty years old. I already knew this from observation and often found it annoying; but that it is largely an unconscious thing on the part of some females irritated me even more because I had thought it was a matter of choice, a mere affectation or a bad habit. elliottb: I'm intrigued how and why myths come to be, though the myths themselves don't interest me much. I will take a look at the 'Unhistory'. I know what you mean about anything "that holds interest" -- so in furtherance to your dilemma and mine, I will respond to woodnymph: woodnymph, I would enjoy a nonfiction thread and I would certainly contribute. Nonfiction seems to get short shrift here at RP. I know you mention the NF you read, Mary, but I'd say the "What are you reading?" thread runs something like 70/30 or 75/25 percent, favoring fiction over nonfiction. I can never keep up with all the bestselling fiction -- sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm only one person while there are dozens of people here at RP (and multitudes elsewhere) following the fiction trends. Yet nonfiction is even wider than fiction, so it's hard to comprehend that reading through post after post and there's hardly a mention of it. Maybe a thread devoted entirely to NF would bring more of it out -- I hope it would.

Emily Dickinson Quotes American - Poet December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886 Saying nothing... sometimes says the most. Emily Dickinson Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. Emily Dickinson The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. Emily Dickinson Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality. Emily Dickinson My friends are my estate. Emily Dickinson I dwell in possibility. Emily Dickinson Where thou art, that is home. Emily Dickinson Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. Emily Dickinson Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it. Emily Dickinson That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. Emily Dickinson Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes. Emily Dickinson Forever is composed of nows. Emily Dickinson Finite to fail, but infinite to venture. Emily Dickinson Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. Emily Dickinson Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door. Emily Dickinson They might not need me; but they might. I'll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity. Emily Dickinson I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision. Emily Dickinson A wounded deer leaps the highest. Emily Dickinson I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. Emily Dickinson Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate. Emily Dickinson Beauty is not caused. It is. Emily Dickinson The brain is wider than the sky. Emily Dickinson A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. Emily Dickinson If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. Emily Dickinson Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought. Emily Dickinson Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned. Emily Dickinson How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! Emily Dickinson To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality. Emily Dickinson Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell. Emily Dickinson Fortune befriends the bold. Emily Dickinson Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon. Emily Dickinson I'm nobody, who are you? Emily Dickinson Dying is a wild night and a new road. Emily Dickinson Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only! Emily Dickinson We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came. Emily Dickinson Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath. Emily Dickinson People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. Emily Dickinson To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. Emily Dickinson Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm. Emily Dickinson I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality. Emily Dickinson To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. Emily Dickinson If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. Emily Dickinson It is better to be the hammer than the anvil. Emily Dickinson If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better. Emily Dickinson God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally. Emily Dickinson There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry. Emily Dickinson He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust. Emily Dickinson I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. Emily Dickinson Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed. Emily Dickinson Tell the truth, but tell it slant. Emily Dickinson Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent. Emily Dickinson I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind. Emily Dickinson I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name. Emily Dickinson After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs. Emily Dickinson In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery. Emily Dickinson I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves. Emily Dickinson They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse. Emily Dickinson Carolyn Kizer Quotes American - Poet December 10, 1925 - October 9, 2014 I didn't learn much about writing at Sarah Lawrence, but I learned a lot about the sources of poems - dreams, myth, history - from the really great teachers, Joseph Campbell, Charles Trinkhaus, Bert Loewenberg, and a young Australian anthropologist named Harry Hawthorne. Carolyn Kizer Environmental concerns and feminism are locked together. Generally, women have closer connections to the organic nature of our lives. Carolyn Kizer I began writing poems when I was about eight, with a heavy assist from my mother. She read me Arthur Waley's translations and Whitman and Robinson Jeffers, who have been lifelong influences on me. My father read Keats to me, and then he read more Keats while I was lying on the sofa struggling with asthma. Carolyn Kizer No matter how brief an encounter you have with anybody, you both change. Carolyn Kizer As I remember, the first real poem I wrote was about the wheat fields between Spokane and Pullman, to the south. Carolyn Kizer I tell people I never got to hear Dylan Thomas read because my husband wouldn't let me, because he thought it would be a sort of bad influence. People say, 'And you didn't go?' They're so surprised because the me they know would have gone. And I say I was very much a 'yes, dear' wife. Carolyn Kizer I wrote poetry off and on in high school, when I could manage to get out of gym classes and sports - using my allergies as an excuse - and climb the hill behind school till I found a nice place to settle down with a notebook and look at Spokane spread out below. Carolyn Kizer I've been enormously fortunate. People say, 'How do you feel about your reputation?' My real belief is that I have exactly the reputation I deserve... on the whole, I feel comfortable with myself. Carolyn Kizer I used to get so many letters from students about the ending of 'Pro Femina.' So I had a stamp made that said 'irony, irony, irony' to put on a postcard and mail it back. Carolyn Kizer I was raised to be a girl Michelangelo. Carolyn Kizer I discovered it was easier to carry around a pen than a piano. Carolyn Kizer