Allen Wins Eight Poetry Awards   Clifton Forge, VA (Jan. 18, 2018) - M. Ray Allen, founder and president of Appalfolks of America Association (AAA), has won eight poetry awards by winning four poetry contests outright, finishing second in two, placing third in one, and receiving a 1st honorable mention as well. Allen, a native of Floyd County, Kentucky, who resides in Clifton Forge, Virginia, entered ten poetry contests in 2017. The Green River Writers (GRW) of Louisville has announced that his entries resulted in winning cash prizes and certificates for first place in the following poetry contests: Small-Town Observations for his free verse poem, “Beyond the Trail of the Lonesome Pine; The Power of Myth for “Speed for Peace,” a persona poem; Rise Up for “Transformation,” a free verse poem; and The Thing Under the Bed for “The Fish Bowl,” a blank verse poem. Also, two of Allen’s poems won cash prizes for second place: one entitled “The Choice” in the Syllabics Poetry Contest and “Driving to Catawba,” a free verse poem, in the Ordinary Poems Poetry Contest. In the Jim O’Dell Memorial Poetry Contest, Allen’s limerick entitled “A Tiger or Two?” won a cash prize for third place. Also, he received 1st honorable mention for “The Magic Carpet,” a blank verse poem he entered into The Thing Under the Bed Poetry Contest. After making his debut as a poet as a featured reader for the opening ceremony at the Douglass House Center in Long Beach, California, in 1968, Allen began submitting poems to magazines, and Black Times, a literary arts magazine in Palo Alto, published Allen’s poem, a free verse poem about Ali being stripped of his heavyweight championship title by Uncle Sam. During the next 50 years, his poems were accepted for publication by such magazines as Appalachian Heritage, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Appalachian Voices, Nostalgia, Appalachian Legacy, Image, Westwind, UCLA’s Quarterly of the Arts, The Poet’s Domain, Artemis, Lumina, The Jackson River Madtom, and Potato Eyes. Allen’s poems have been anthologized in Coal: A Poetry Anthology, Breadbasket with the Blues, and Old Wounds, New Words. Also, Allen has written four books of poetry: The Roads I Travel (1990), Between the Thorns: Windcarver Songs of Appalachia (1991), Beyond Star Bottom and Other Poems (2000) and An Appalachian Poet in San Francisco (2013). Encyclopedia of Appalachia, a publication by the University of Tennessee Press in 2006, cites (Page 2 Continued) Allen for his poetry and work in helping youth in Appalachia, dubbing him “an Appalachian activist.” During the time he served as a member of the Appalachian Writers Association, Allen was chosen to give the valedictory poetry reading at Radford University, and he has been featured as a reader at such places as Center in the Square in Roanoke, Berea College, Jenny Wiley State Park, Douthat State Park, Appalshop, the Clifton Forge Public Library, the Historic Masonic Theatre and Dabney S. Lancaster Community College. The GRW was founded in 1984 by Jim O’Dell and his wife, Mary who hired Allen to conduct a writers’ workshop at the University of Louisville’s Shelbyville Campus. Allen has served as the director of the Kentucky Highlands Writers’ Workshop, the Mountain Heritage Festival Writers’ Workshop, and the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. Currently, he serves as co-director of the Alleghany Highlands Writers’ Workshop that is held in conjunction with the Clifton Forge Public Library on the second and fourth Thursday each month. Anmarie Herald, his youngest daughter and co-director, is pursuing a career as a writer who has written 15 chapters of her first novel. Herald also serves as secretary for AAA. Allen, whose poetry awards now total more than 50, remarked, “The Green River Writers awarded prize money and certificates to winning writers from 16 states and Canada in 2017, and there were 450 entries submitted.” After 41 years of teaching in the public schools of Kentucky, Michigan, California and Virginia, Allen retired in 2003, having taught the following subjects during his career: English, physical education, health, reading, creative writing, mythology, journalism, drama, photography and hunters’ safety. Also, Allen served as a varsity coach in five sports: basketball, baseball, golf, cross country and YPF physical fitness. Residing in Alleghany County since accepting the varsity basketball coaching position at Alleghany County High School in 1978, Allen purchased the Buckhorne Country Store and Campground in 2000, and he and Cherie Davis Allen, his wife, continue to operate the business. The year Allen made his debut as a poet, Cherie won the title of Miss Virginia and went on to finish in the Top Ten in the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. The couple met in Roanoke in 1971, and they were married in Long Beach, California, in 1973. They have four children, Landon Ray Allen, 39 who flew F-18 Hornets for the U.S. Marine Corps before being hired as a pilot for Southwest Airlines; Jana Cherie Allen Bahrns, 35 who is an actress; Amber Suzanne Dean, 31 who operates the Amber Suzanne Salon at the campground; and Anmarie, 27, who manages the campground with her father.

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