To qualify are You:

-An American Citizen
-An avid Poet
-An adventurist or an aspiring Traveller
-Looking for a compelling challenge for creativity
-Hungry for a change of environment
-Trying to get your art/poetry out into the world
-Inspired by culture, art, history, etc.
-Want out of the North American continent for one year

Today I come to you with a time-sensitive prompt, one that I'm also ambitiously participating in. I've been browsing through Freedomwithwriting.com (A blog for writers) for their free resources and I came across the Amy Lowell Poetry Scholarship. It's an open scholarship with no prerequisites or qualifiers other than the contestants must be American Citizens and the content submitted must be poetry written by the candidate.

So what is this opportunity all about, what's the hype you say?
Well the winner is given $50,000 to travel to wherever they believe would best suit their advances of their art. In conclusion to their international experience, at the end of the year the winner must submit at least three poems to the Amy Lowell scholarship comittee. Let me run that by you all again: The recipient is encouraged to travel WHEREVER THE WINNER DECIDES would best get their juices flowing! When I read this flat and dreadful formatted text on the page, my eyes eagerly searched the rest of the guidelines for how this can become my reality.

And then the intensive brainstorming, meditating and manifesting began:

[Me bathed in mud, in a fancy spa somewhere in CA]

To put it out there, I'm a daydreamer who yearns to live abroad. The birth of my travel addiction began in the summer of my freshman year of highschool and my parents were generous enough to send me to Europe for 21 days with an internation student program called People to People. I had briefly visited Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland. After that, I viewed travel as a whole new way of living. Since then, I have been leisurely traveling internationally out of Hawai'i every year for the past 4-5 years. The past three summers I have fallen in love with Bali, Indonesia. I have been blessed to be able to travel with friends and family to places like Costa Rica, the Philippines, and along the West Coast of the US. To put it simply, I have a long list with destinations and experiences waiting to happen!

As my wanderlust grows in potency and in distance, I have been dreaming to experience traveling solo with a sense of purpose or direct cause. Living in Hawai'i, I have the pleasure to befriend many flavors of people from all walks of life from across the globe. Many of my close circle of friends are travel junkies and it amazes me how we all have our own ways of traveling; Backpacking, luxurious travel, hostel hopping, glamping galore. Even though my currently over-packed lifestyle is slightly restrictive, I'm always on the lookout for potential opportunities to change my life by traveling abroad. I'm starving for a way to explore the world with free wings.

As I travel inter-island, inter-state and internationally, the richness of my life grows. I can say that I feel at my best and I feel the most supported by the Universe when I'm in the unfamilar cities and towns of the world. I have adjusted my perspective of wealth based on my experiences traveling; I feel the wealthiest when I'm forming new bonds, learning new languages, eating decadant cultural foods and sleeping in various beds. Being able to adapt to new environments, be flexible with spontaneity and accidents and interacting with a whole new kind of people has taught me valuable life skills. Now I feel as though I could connect with almost anyone and everyone. Although we may speak differently, drink or eat differently, think differently; we all feel love and fear, as all humans do.

Traveling has given me the unrequited inspiration that burns slow and consistenly like a coal's flame. Through stagnant times in my life, I look forward to leaving the paradisal rock I call home to venture off into faraway lands. Traveling has taught me to be eternally grateful in all situations and circumstances. It has enforced hard and timely lessons of patience and forgiveness. The art of travel has become one of my dearest passtimes and also my lifeline.

I am committing to writing several poems everyday in order to compile a collection of 27 pages of work that I can submit with my application. I will be posting some of my work on Steemit.com for feedback, and I hope the #poetry community will be willing to lend me a hand with constructive criticism and positive support! You could help me win this contest, or allow me to help you possibly win too! This #Travel opportunity is worth the risk of being undone by a committe who knows nothing about me, and will judge me based on very personal work.

If any of you out there reading this shares my affinity to travel, poetry and a good challenge the deadline is OCTOBER 15, 2016. Here is the website with links to the application, terms and guidelines: http://www.amylowell.org/index.html.