Jersey Shore Magazine

Home Port GUIDELINES SUBMIT: Poems up to 100 lines maximum each, hard copy 12 point Times New Roman font, one side of paper only. Do not staple poems and pages together. Title should appear on each page of the poem, but poet's name and identifying information should not appear anywhere on the poems. Include a cover sheet with name, address, phone, email address, and the titles of the poems you are submitting. ENTRY FEES: You may submit up to 6 unpublished poems. The fee is $10 for up to 3 poems, $20 for 4-6 poems. Each entrant will receive one copy of the 2014 issue. The entry fees cover the logging, processing, reading, judging and mailing of the 2014 issue to each entrant. j e r s e y s h o r e • F a l l / H o l i d a y 2 0 1 3 Checks should be made payable to: "COUNTY COLLEGE OF MORRIS FOUNDATION." A $40 fee will be charged for any checks returned unpaid to the college. Regular submissions of poetry to be considered for publication in the Journal are welcome without a fee. The annual deadline for regular poetry submissions is November 1. Regular submissions will not be considered for the New Jersey Poets Prize. 88 DEADLINE: Postmarked by November 1, 2013. One winning poem written by a poet from New Jersey and honorable mention winners will be chosen by the editors. Winning poem and honorable mention poems will be published in the 2014 issue. In addition to the cash award, a commemorative medallion, dinner and National Poetry Month poetry reading will be held in honor of the winning poet. Entries must be previously unpublished poems. SEND ENTREE FEE TO: Matthew Ayres Editor, Journal of New Jersey Poets County College of Morris CH-300 214 Center Grove Road Randolph, NJ 07869-2086 JUDGING: The editors of the Journal of New Jersey Poets will serve as judges for the 2014 New Jersey Poets Prize. Entries received after the November 1 deadline will be returned to the poet. Mark the envelope "2014 NJ Poets Prize entry. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope ("SASE") if you wish to receive an announcement of the winning poem and the date of the 2014 Poets Prize reading. Please refer to page 58 What if people believed you were a God? What would you do with that power? Children Of The Sky The Odyssey of Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca Based on little-known historical events, Gordon Hesse, author of All Summer Long - Tales and Lore of Lifeguarding on the Atlantic, tells the true adventure saga of the first European explorer to cross the North American continent. He depicts how this conquistador became a slave to Native Americans, yet rose to become a medicine man perceived by them to be a deity. E-book available at: Apple Bookstore, Amazon.com, BN.com | Details at: levelonepublications.com continued from page 98 Finally it is decided. We will gather as many generators as we can find and have a Halloween dance party in the school gym. We invite kids from the neighboring town whose school, and many, many homes were destroyed. It is anticipated that some children will have no costumes, which seems like such a trivial concern when so much else has been swept away. But we know in our hearts it is not. So volunteers come to do facepaint. More volunteers travel from Brick to bring decorations and lights. Everyone gets ready by candlelight and walks to the gym with flashlights in hand. This silly dance, this frivolous Halloween celebration may not seem as important as other recovery efforts, but it is the most important thing of all right now—it is what we can do. We can still create a memory of Halloween fun amongst all that we would rather forget. It is just a party in a gym, but it is a foundation for rebuilding, a small step toward normalcy, and perhaps even joy, among the still wet debris. And once again, despite it all, it is gloriously, bittersweetly wonderful and fun and emblazoned in memories like so much else that surreal Halloween. So here we are with another fall, nearly one year after our world at the Shore changed forever in many ways. It is easy to be discouraged when we see how much is still left to be done. The sad reality of recovery is that it will likely be years before we entirely feel "normal" again. But if we pay attention, there is still the same refreshing bite in the air. The fields are once again bursting with pumpkins, corn mazes, and mums. The children are once again planning their Halloween costumes. We have made it through the frenzy of our first summer. We have reentered the ocean, taken our first dive in, tasted the salt and sun on our skin, and emerged yet again. Let's now breathe our collective sigh of relief and know that autumn, for us here at the beach, is not about death. It is about rebirth. u Christine Menapace is a freelance writer and contributor to this magazine. She lives in Keyport.

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