When travelers arrive at the Denver International Airport, they are greeted by a thirty-two-foot-tall sculpture of an electric blue steed with neon eyes and pulsing veins, locally known as Bluecifer. For over ten years, the notorious sculpture has sparked rumors and tall tales about the airport, including that a humanoid reptilian race lives under the facility and hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath the airport lead to subterranean survival bunkers. This week, write an essay about a sculpture or a place that has inspired tall tales. Do you believe any of the stories?

Although the summer solstice for the Northern Hemisphere is still a month away, the upcoming Memorial Day weekend celebrated by Americans often marks the unofficial beginning of summer. Some enjoy the long weekend with barbecues, road trips, and beach outings. While others visit cemeteries to honor and commemorate members of the military as well as loved ones who’ve passed away. Inspired by the days leading up to the start of summer, write a story set during a holiday weekend in which grief and celebration come to a head. What complicated emotions do your characters experience while enjoying their time off?

First published in the October 1999 issue of Poetry magazine, Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Seven Deadly Sins” is a series of seven poems, each one named after the deadly sins of medieval Christian theology. Each poem is a distinct lyric portrait with its own sentiment, style, and approach to the topic. In “Sloth,” Komunyakaa writes with an open-ended musicality: “In this / Upside-down haven, you’re reincarnated / As a fallen angel trying to go home.” In “Gluttony,” the poet sets the scene concretely in the first stanza: “In a country of splendor & high / Ritual, in a fat land of zeros, / Sits a man with string & bone / For stylus, hunched over his easel.” Inspired by this series, write a poem dedicated to one of the seven deadly sins: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. What approach will you take?

Calling all emerging poets: Don’t forget to send your poetry manuscripts to Milkweed Editions’ Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, which offers an award of $10,000 and publication for a debut poetry collection.

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Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages with a $25 entry fee by May 31. Nobel Prize–winning poet Louise Glück will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The Max Ritvo Poetry Prize celebrates the life of the acclaimed author of the poetry collections Four Reincarnations (2016) and The Final Voicemails (2018), both published by Milkweed Editions, an independent publisher based in Minneapolis. Ritvo, who died in 2016, “came into the Milkweed family like a ball of fire,” Daniel Slager, the press’s publisher, said when the prize was established in 2017. “I can think of no better way to honor Max and his legacy than a first-book poetry prize, which will honor outstanding accomplishment in the art form he excelled in, enriching American letters for years to come.”