1 . The 2024 Peace Poetry Awards

The awards contest is to encourage people to explore peace and the human spirit. There are three age categories: Adult (19 & over), Youth (13-18), and Youth (12 & under). The yearly contest is open to people worldwide. Your poems must be unpublished, and in English.

Deadline

All entries must be submitted by July 1st. 2024.

Entry Fee

Adult (19 & over) — $15

Youth (13 - 18) — $5

Youth (12 & under) — no fee

Notes

1. You may submit up to three unpublished poems. At most 30 lines per poem.

2. Include name, address, email, telephone number, and age in the upper right-hand corner of each poem. For the Youth (12 & under) category, please also include your school’s name and your teacher’s name.

3. Title each poem.

4. Please keep copies of all entries as we will be unable to return them.

5. Email your entries to: cwarner@napf.org and Click here to pay your entry fee online; or send your entries and entry fee to Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 1622 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

Awards

Adult Winner — $1,000

Youth (13-18) Winner — $200

Youth (12 & under) Winner — $200

Winners will be announced by October 1st, 2024 on our website. Winners will be notified by email. Past years winning poems can be found here.

2 . Don’t know where to choose gifts for friends or family? Here are five special gift shops featuring different kinds of gifts.

Games Gadgets

Tel:402-875-5543

Games Gadgets is the perfect one-stop (一站式的) shop for electrical goods. Here at Games Gadgets we provide a wide range of electronic goods at some of the very best prices around. From Cameras and GPS Sat Navs to Gaming Accessories and Computers, iPads and iPods, we have everything you could ever need.

Reba

Tel:406-637-2219

Reba supplies fashion clothes, jewellery (珠宝) and gifts to people throughout the local area. Reba is an independent store, supplying well-known brands as well as up-and-coming designers. Reba is a store for those who love clothes, jewellery and gifts and it always aims to ofier something different.

The Sweet Shop

Tel:421-896-3129

The Sweet Shop is a brand-new gift store created just for chocolate lovers. The shop sells a wonderful range of chocolate-themed goodies from dark to white chocolate. It is extremely popular with all kinds of parties, chocolate lovers and people who are looking for a fun activity.

Blue Department Store

Tel:419-156-9910

A favorite shopping destination for many foreigners, Blue is devoted to top brands including expensive famous wines which are all 30 percent oft, maybe 40 to 50 percent off. We have no more than70 kinds of world-famous wine in our store. Location: No. 6001 Oak Street, O Hare International Airport.

Quality Stuff Off-Price Department Store

Tcl:491-938-9012

Quality Stuff Off-Price Department Store opened only one month ago and it features new sportswear this season. They have well-known brands such as Nike, Adidas, Levis, Nautica and Hush Puppies. Quality Stuff Off-Price Department Store is famous for the reduced price of each item. Reduced rates vary from 40 percent to 80 percent. The best buys here are some brands, which find a nice balance between style, quality and price.

The Christmas holidays were fast approaching, and we had ordered many gifts online, So when the doorbell rang, I was sure some of the packages had arrived. I ran to the door, but no one was there. T sensed something and looked down, only to find a beautiful calico kitten (杂色猫) sitting there, looking up at me with big, intelligent eyes. There was no way that she could have rung the doorbell by herself. We figured that someone had found the kitten somewhere and left her there, and then rang the doorbell and ran away. They accurately guessed we would welcome an additional family member and take care of her.

My husband called her our little angel, so we named her Angelica. She turned out to be the perfect companion. Always by my side, she was more like a puppy than a kitten. She had plenty of energy that made every day special. As the days went by, Angelica filled our home with joy and she indeed was a blessing to me.

Angelica was brave, too. One snowy evening, I noticed Angelica behaving strangely. She constantly scratched (用爪刨) at our back door. With a sense of curiosity, I followed her outside. To my surprise, I found an old woman, my neighbor, Mrs. Jensen, fallen in the snow, unable to get up.

Thanks to Angelica’s cleverness, we got to Mrs. Jensen just in time. The warmth of Angelica nestled (偎依着) into her, keeping her safe until help arrived. That night, Angelica was not just my brave calico kitten, but an angel. The bond between us deepened greatly as I thanked my little angel, who had saved not just a neighbor, but filled our lives with love, laughter, and warmth.

6 . One day many years ago, a friend surprised me by using Spanish “Como estas?”instead of the English “How are you?”She told me _________ that she was learning Spanish at the University of Hawaii. It was the first time I had _________ the Senior Citizen Visitor Program (SCVP), which was free to those suitable.

Immediately, I rushed back home and _________ everything about the SCVP online. The next day, I _________ the SCVP office at UH. My_________ course (课程) was the Life-long Study for Hawaii Elders. However, the person at the other end of the phone _________ me: I had to be at least 60 years old to_________ . At that moment, I really hated to be so_________ ! But no choice — so I started _________ to get older.

At the end of 2018, after my 60 birthday, I telephoned the SCVP office again. In the spring__________of 2019, I got registered(注册) and __________ two classes: Ballroom Dance and Introduction to Interpretation.

No matter how old I was, once I was sitting among young people, with both my body and spirit __________ in the classroom, listening to and writing down what the __________taught made me forget my age.

Of course, I used this experience to__________ that old people’s brain may get__________but it’s still enough to learn __________. Second, for aged people, returning to school helps them to seemingly __________ their real age, especially when they get the same__________as younger classmates do in examinations. And third, we aged people are useful ones who have rich __________including knowing why, what and how to keep __________.

7 . I used to travel to make myself relaxed. Two years ago, I was rather busy with my business and under a lot of ________, so I went to Las Vegas for a holiday. I just wanted to get away and ________ for a while.

When I was on holiday, an ________ suddenly came to me. I had long wished to pay a visit to the Greek island of Sanatorium. Therefore, the idea of a two-week European ________ alone was born.

I’d driven ________ across the US before, but traveling to other ________ whose languages aren’t the same as mine ________ me. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to ________ with anyone.

But I soon ________ that if I wanted to follow my dreams, I had to ________ out of my comfort area (舒适区). If I let ________ take control of me, I’d get nowhere.

As I was ________ more places to visit on my trip, I found Mykonos, Greece, which I ________ just as much as I liked Sanatorium. When I arrived in ________, it was like I was in a dream.

What I appreciated best was the bus ride to Venice. As I rode the bus and enjoyed every new thing I saw, I was completely ________ from the pressure (压力) of my work. How ________ it was to see people riding their bikes to the ________ they would like to go to!

Some people might say, “It’s not a big ________; it’s just Venice. Thousands of people go there every day.” But is was more than that to me. It was about having a ________ and when it was time for it to come true, don’t let it ________.