WELCOME TO SOUTH DAKOTA STATE POETRY SOCIETY

To encourage poem-making and
poem-reading in South Dakota.

  • South Dakota
SDSPS was organized in 1927 and incorporated as a South Dakota non-profit on August 8, 1970.

Our Mission

To encourage and foster the writing and publication of poetry by South Dakota writers and to promote excellence therein; to arouse in students of high school and college age, interest in the creative writing of poetry; to foster or publish Pasque Petals, a magazine, on a regular basis, thereby continuing the publication which was begun before the Society was organized, which publication is devoted chiefly to poetry, to stimulate by such proper means as the sponsoring of contests, awarding of prizes, and by other means of encouragement, the writing of poetry; and by these means to aid in the cultural growth of South Dakota.

SDSPS acknowledges that we share the traditional lands of the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires nations, the proper name for the tribes of the Santee-Dakota, Yankton-Nakota, and Teton-Lakota people, referred to collectively as the Sioux.

fountain pen, notebook, paper

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Sioux Falls Poetry Course for Senior Citizens

By sdpoetry | October 11, 2021

By Linda Hallstrom Chronic Poetry Inspired by Sarah Yerkes, a woman who started writing poetry at the age of 96 and published her first book at the age of 100, two Sioux Falls women will be teaching a poetry writing class for senior citizens this fall. Linda Hallstrom and Dr. Rosanne Kirts are offering the […]

Mentoring Young Writers by Erika Saunders

By sdpoetry | September 26, 2021

Last week I was invited along with some other SDSPS members to present poetry workshops in local high school and middle school classrooms in support of a program hosted by the Brookings County Youth Mentoring Program (BCYMP) based on the recently compiled poetry anthology South Dakota in Poems https://sdpoetry.org/product/south-dakota-in-poems/. BCYMP is a youth mentoring program that recruits, […]

Silver Linings and Zoom in the Pandemic

By sdpoetry | May 12, 2021

I’ve never been a fan of technology; there’s dozens of poems stored away on hard drives, social media sites, and the cloud to prove it. That’s why it was no small suprise that when the COVID-19 pandemic seized the world and essentially quarantined me on the other side of the globe, technology was the thing […]

Poetry Interactions: The Basics of Submitting and Publishing

By sdpoetry | April 29, 2021

Now that we have covered the pleasure of interacting with poetry every day, reading and sharing poetry, taking online classes, and writing and revising, I thought we better cover the next step: submitting and publishing. Different people write poetry for different reasons. Some people just want to write it down without anyone else reading it. […]

Poetry Interactions: Writing and Revising

By sdpoetry | April 21, 2021

As I challenged myself to interact with poetry daily, I found myself writing more poetry. Writing was much more organic, and I wasn’t staring at a blank page. If anything, I was trying to get my hands on a blank page and a pen and a few minutes when my daughter was occupied or napping. […]

Poetry Interactions: Online Classes and Revision

By sdpoetry | April 14, 2021

As part of challenging myself to interact with poetry, I also ended up taking a few online poetry classes. At first I just wanted to learn more of the poetry basics for a refresher and hopefully to be introduced to some new information. So, I took Coursera’s free course: “Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop.” This […]

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