Cha "The Other Side" Poetry Contest — Finalists

The Other Side

A Cha Poetry contest

This contest is run by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. It is for unpublished poems on the theme of "The Other Side".

SHORTLISTED POETS
(click the pictures to learn more)

 

 

 

Judges:

• Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, a Hong Kong-born poet, is founding co-editor of Cha. Her latest project is Desde Hong Kong: Poets in conversation with Octávio Paz.
• Vinita Agrawal, author of Words Not Spoken, is a Mumbai-based, award winning-poet and writer. She was nominated for the Best of the Net Awards 2011 and awarded first prize in the Wordweavers Contest 2014, commendation prize in the All India Poetry Competition 2014 and won the 2014 Hour of Writes Contest twice.

Prizes:

• First: £30, Second: £20, Third: £15, Highly Commended (up to 5): £10 each. (Payable through Paypal.)
• All winning poems (including the highly recommended ones) will receive first publication in a special section in the March 2015 issue of Cha.

The prizes were generously donated by a reader living in Australia.

Previous Cha contests:

• "Reconciliation" (poetry)
• "Void" (poetry)
• "Encountering" (poetry)
• "The Past" (poetry)
• "Misinterpretation" (flash fiction)
• "Betrayal" (poetry)
• "Fine Tea Competition" (commentary/criticism)

Cha "The Other Side" Poetry Contest

The Other Side

A Cha Poetry contest

This contest is run by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. It is for unpublished poems on the theme of "The Other Side".

::: SEE THE FINALISTS HERE ::: 
::: SEE THE WINNERS HERE :::

Judges:

• Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, a Hong Kong-born poet, is founding co-editor of Cha. Her latest project is Desde Hong Kong: Poets in conversation with Octávio Paz.
• Vinita Agrawal, author of Words Not Spoken, is a Mumbai-based, award winning-poet and writer. She was nominated for the Best of the Net Awards 2011 and awarded first prize in the Wordweavers Contest 2014, commendation prize in the All India Poetry Competition 2014 and won the 2014 Hour of Writes Contest twice.

Rules:

• Each poet can submit up to two poems (no more than 80 lines long each).
• Poems must be previously unpublished. 
• Entry is free.

Closing date:

• 15 February 2015

Prizes:

• First: £30, Second: £20, Third: £15, Highly Commended (up to 5): £10 each. (Payable through Paypal.)
• All winning poems (including the highly recommended ones) will receive first publication in a special section in the March 2015 issue of Cha.

The prizes were generously donated by a reader living in Australia.

Submission:

• Submissions should be sent to t@asiancha.com with the subject line "The Other Side".
• Poems must be sent in the body of the email.
• Please also include a short biography of no more than 30 words.

Previous Cha contests:

• "Reconciliation" (poetry)
• "Void" (poetry)
• "Encountering" (poetry)
• "The Past" (poetry)
• "Misinterpretation" (flash fiction)
• "Betrayal" (poetry)
• "Fine Tea Competition" (commentary/criticism)

New updates on 5 Cha contributors: Nabina Das, Reid Mitchell, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Ricky Garni and Vinita Agrawal

Nabina Das

"Eyes", a short story by Nabina Das, is now available in Open Road Review. A squall gets the power out.

|| Nabina Das's poetry was published in Issue #10 of Cha.

*****

Reid Mitchell

"Sea Shells", a new poem by Reid Mitchell, is featured in Reprint Poetry. What if the circus arrives?

|| Read Reid Mitchell's Cha profile.
-

*****

Mia Ayumi Malhotra

Mia Ayumi Malhotra's  "[A MECHANICAL BEEPING FILLS THE SPACE]" is available in DIAGRAM. A woman touches her eyes with a white tissue.

|| Mia Ayumi Malhotra's poetry was published in issue #15 of Cha. 
-

*****

Ricky Garni

Ricky Garni's poem "Barbara Stanwyck" is available in Commas and Colons. Would do anything to please a man.

 || Ricky Garni's poem "Literal Translation of Korean Ideograms" was published in Issue #16 of Cha and was creatively responded on A Cup of Fine Tea. His poem "Tarsier" was published in Issue #18 of Cha and was discussed on A Cup of Fine Tea.

*****

Vinita Agrawal

Vinita Agrawal's poem "Mortakka"is included in the anthology entitled The Poetry of Yoga, which was released to mark the special date of 12/12/12 by One Community. More information about The Poetry of Yoga can be found here. Half the proceeds from the book will go to One Community. 

 || Vinita Agrawal's poetry was published in Issue #16 and Issue #17 of Cha.

*****

New updates on 6 Cha contributors: Alison Wong, Vinita Agrawal, Berit Ellingsen, Mani Rao, Rheea Mukherjee and Sumana Roy

Alison Wong

Alison Wong, a poet and novelist whose first novel As the Earth Turns Silver won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction and selected by the New Zealand Listener and the Sunday Star-Times as one of the best books published in 2009, will be reading from her book and discussing it at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival next month. Learn more about the event here.

Alison's poem "There's Always Things To Come Back to the Kitchen For" was published in Issue #5 of Cha and discussed on A Cup of Fine Tea. Her As the Earth Turns Silver was reviewed in Cha.

*****

Vinita Agrawal

Vinita Agrawal's poem "Nine-Bow Rain" is hotly available in Spark Magazine. Vinita's poem "Textile Homeland" and a review of The Poetry of Yoga were also published in Spark.

|| Vinita Agrawal's poetry was published in Issue #16 and Issue #17 of Cha.

*****

Berit Ellingsen

A prose poem by Berit Ellingsen, titled "Polaris", is now part of writer xTx’s Supermodel Summer project. Read Berit's poem here.  

||  Read Berit Ellingsen's Cha profile. 

*****

Mani Rao

In this review of The HapperCollins Book of English Poetry (ed. Sudeep Sen), which includes post-1950s Indian poetry in English, you can read the poem "Shiva's Dig" by Mani Rao. Read the full review and Mani's poem here.

||  Mani Rao's poetry was published in Issue #1 of Cha.

*****

Rheea Mukherjee

The Spring 2012 issue of the Southern Humanities Review is now out and Rheea Mukherjee has a fiction piece, titled "Help With Packing", is included in it. Learn more about SHR and the new issue here.

|| Rheea Mukherjee's poetry was published in Issue #15 of Cha.

*****

Sumana Roy

"Planchette", a short story by Sumana Roy, is now published in a special edition of the Daily Star, based in Bangladesh.

|| See Sumana Roy's Cha profile.

*****

New updates on 6 Cha contributors: Patrick Donnelly, Mag Tan Yee Mei, Vinita Agrawal, Wendy Xu, Nicolette Wong and Dena Rash Guzman

Patrick Donnelly

Patrick Donnelly's "In Which I Explain Why I Set the Fire" and "Poem Contradicting the Previous Poem" are now published in Plume. Read the poems here. There was no fire. There was never any fire.

||  Patrick Donnelly and Stephen D. Miller's poetry was published in issue #8 of Cha.

*****

Mag Tan Yee Mei and Vinita Agrawal 

Mag Tan Yee Mei's two stories "The Musician and the Muse" and "The Lampblacker" and Vinita Agrawal's poem "Thoughts" are now available in the latest issue of Fox Chase Review. 

|| See Mag Tan's Cha profile. 
|| Vinita Agrawal's poetry was published in Issue #16 and Issue #17 of Cha.


*****

Wendy Xu

Three poems by Wendy Xu - "YOU THINK YOU ARE SOMETHING LESS REAL THAN YOU ARE", "WE ARE BOTH SURE TO DIE" and "WE ARE BOTH SURE TO DIE" - are now published in the new edition of Diagram. 

|| Wendy Xu's poetry was published in Issue #16 of Cha. 

*****

Nicolette Wong and Dena Rash Guzman

Nicolette Wong's "The Runaway Conductor" and Dena Rash Guzman's "Pages Apocalypse" and "Moon Baby Eats Lunch In Shanghai" are included in the September 2012 issue of Thrush Poetry Journal. 

|| Nicolette Wong's short stories were published in Issue #1 and Issue #6 of Cha.
|| Dena Rash Guzman's poetry was published in Issue #15 and Issue #16 of Cha.


*****

New updates on 6 Cha contributors: Ricky Garni, Changming Yuan, Vinita Agrawal, Jee Leong Koh, Greg Santos and Berit Ellingsen

Ricky Garni 

Two new poems by Ricky Garni, "i can't believe it's not marjoram" (p. 20) and "white out" (p. 21), are published in the Summer 2012 issue of em:me magazine. But it is more writing out than whiting out, don't you think?

|| Ricky Garni's poetry was published in Issue #16 of Cha. 

*****

Changming Yuan and Vinita Agrawal

Changming Yuan and Vinita Agrawal have new poems published in the June 2012 issue of Contemporary Literary Review India. Read Changming's "The Call of a Crow", "Self-Rebuilding: A Bodhi Poem" and "Epilogues: A Parallel Poem" and Vinita's "The Image and the Form". 

||  Changming Yuan's poetry was published in Issue #13 of Cha.

|| Vinita Agrawal's poetry was published in Issue #16 and Issue #17 of Cha. 

*****

Jee Leong Koh

Jee Leong Koh's "Reproductive Rites" (pp. xviii-xxv), a series of short verses that incorporate four consecutive words from each poem of Julia Alvarez's sonnet sequence "33", is published in the June 2012 issue of Short, Fast, and Deadly Thanks, Joseph A. W. Quintela, for featuring the work in Short, Fast, and Deadly. 

|| Jee Leong Koh's poem "Razminovenie, or Nonmeeting" was published in issue #6 of Cha and discussed on A Cup of Fine Tea.


*****

Greg Santos 

Greg Santos's poem "Beware Reader" (p. 29?) can now be read in the online version of Black Tongue Review. Earl Grey tea, anyone?

|| Greg Santos's poem "Siem Reap, Cambodia" was published in issue #10 of Cha and discussed here.

**********

Berit Ellingsen 

Berit Ellingsen's lyrical "Sexual Dimorphism — A Nightmare Transcribed From Sanskrit" is published in the July/August 2012 issue of elimae. 'Your female self must walk through the woods'. 

|| Read Berit Ellingsen's Cha profile.

*****