Lisa Stice to Serve as a War Poetry Postcard Project Judge

Author of poetry collections including “Letters from Conflict” and “Permanent Change of Station,” North Carolina poet and U.S. Marine Corps spouse Lisa Stice (she/her) will serve as one of three judges for the inaugural War Poetry Postcard Project (WPPP) contest. 

Contest organizers seek short poems (equal to 26 lines or less, including line-spaces) regarding effects of armed conflict, state violence, and military service.

The contest is co-sponsored by Collateral Journal and Middle West Press. As announced last week, Collateral Journal founding editor and WPPP keynoter Abby E. Murray (they/them) will also serve as a contest judge.

A cohort of three winning poems will be selected, then produced, printed, and distributed as ready-to-mail 4x6-inch postcards later this summer. 

Contest deadline is May 3, 2025.

Everyone who enters will receive a set of the three winning postcard poems. Organizers hope that the postcards will be used to instigate and inspire conversations with friends, family, politicians, and others. Entry fees will subsidize production, printing, and postage. 

“We’re looking for constructive, healing, and/or clear-eyed insights from all poets, regardless of era, military affiliation or writing experience, or other background,” says Middle West Press editor-publisher and contest organizer Randy Brown.

Among other professional commitments, Stice currently serves as the visual arts editor for the twice-yearly literary on-line Collateral Journal, and as an associate editor with Middle West Press. Stice was also co-editor of the 2023 anthology “Things We Carry Still: Poems and Micro-Stories about Military Gear.” 

“In her poetry, Stice often creatively quotes from both military and children’s-book texts, including maxims by the ancient Chinese philosopher-general Sun Tzu,” says Middle West Press editor-publisher Randy Brown. “And, with ‘Letters from Conflict,’ she delivered a whole collection of epistolary letter-poems—addressing fellow poets and others, past and present.”

“In a very real way, Stice’s poetry inspired us to pursue the idea of using postcards as a ‘new’ way to engage others in artistic correspondence,” Brown says.

Earlier in the project’s development, Brown says, the team used some of Stice’s poems to further hone the War Poetry Postcard Project design concept and process.

“Lisa’s poem ‘Tea with Sun Tzu’ reads like a morning affirmation with a barbed-wire heart,”  Brown says. “I’ve got an early version of the postcard now posted on my office wall, and can’t wait to to share it with others!”

The poem reads, in part:

[...] Teach me the tactics

to be serene and

indestructible, to be

resolved, to understand

the unfathomable

plans ahead of me.

Learn more about the project at: linktr.ee/warpoets

Submit poems via Submittable: middlewestpress.submittable.com/submit