My poem went to outer space. No, really! Let me tell you about it... This last July, I was checking my faculty email, just to see what the college was planning to do for the upcoming Fall semester, and I stumbled onto a forwarded email, something district wide. It was a call for poets, promising that the winners of the contest would have their poem read in space. (Cool!) I looked at the submission date, decided it was worth a shot and started in drafting a poem... for outer space. After I had a draft, I reached out to the online writing community and found another poet. She reviewed my poem, gave me some ideas for improvement, etc. I made some changes and shared it with another writer friend and got more feedback and after revising for a third, fourth, fifth time, I decided it was time to submit. I followed the instructions, filled in my information, and got my "thank you for your submission" email back within seconds. Fast forward to last week, nearly two months after submitting. I was checking my faculty email again, and got something from a coworker. She told me my poem was beautiful and congrats for winning the contest. Huh? I double-checked, triple-checked my email for something that would tell me that I won. Nothing. I never heard from the contest. Weird. So, I emailed my coworker and asked where she saw the finalists listed. Maybe she was mistaken. She said she saw the announcement from our department chair who shared a link. She shared it with me, too and, sure enough, my poem was among the other finalists on their website! I won the contest I think that (maybe) because I'm not teaching a class right now that my email wasn't included in the announcement she saw from our department chair. But where did he hear about me winning? More importantly, when would my poem be read in space? I went into research mode. I searched the contest page, looked everywhere for an email, and considered "replying back" to my submission confirmation, but it was a "no reply" address, meaning it was an automated response most likely. hmmm...
I never figured out when they read my poem in outer space or see a recording of it, but I learned a lot about the crew. They're called Inspiration4, and they are the first civilian crewed spaceship to orbit the earth, which is cool! Oh, and they raised over 20 million dollars for St. Jude's Hospital. So great! It was a historic launch and even though the contest organizers haven't connected with me (yet), I'm glad my poem is on their website and that it may have been read in outer space! I guess that makes me a galactic poet, don't you think? UPDATE June 2022 Dr. Sian Proctor signed my poem and mailed it back to me. I guess that was her way of proof that she took the poem to outer space with her.
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