Winning Landscape Poems from the 2020 Annual Contest

Congratulations to the winning poets of the annual contest! This year Darla Biel judged the landscape category. She said it was tough to pick winners because she was so impressed with the work that was submitted. Thank you to everyone who entered, and enjoy reading these poems.

"Eight South Dakota Riffs on Rilke's 'Herbsttag' (Autumn Day)"

by Sharon Chmielarz

Eight South Dakota Riffs on Rilke’s “Herbsttag”(Autumn Day)“Herr, es ist Zeit, der Sommer war sehr gross, ...” 1.You up there! Time-turner! It’s time. Open your hands, loosen the winds,clear the skies. Make sure, make surethere’s more heart than anger in yourlong shadows, that the sundial’s styleshows it’s time to sweeten dark redmelancholic wines. Let field machineheadlights scour rows of corn like prowlingbot-suns in the night. Entrust our hands–the drivers, the rakers, the washers and fillersof jars and bottles. And the harvest’s bins. 2.A day begins. Shadows–the furrow’s,the combine’s,the farmer’s,and mornings’on elongated legs–bob toward the fields. 3.It’s time, dew has vanished from the field.Midmorning, dry wheat stands up niceand straight before the combine’s header,the cutter, the gatherer, feeding the combine.And from this beginning, a yellow arc of grain–a spray of gold–shoots out into the grain cart.Commodity on the grain exchange.Maybe 50, 70 bushels an acre. To finishall a farmer needs is a steady south windbringing in a few more sunny days. 4.Following timethe sundial’s style moves by shadow,pointing to the hour,each one an endingor beginning.Whatever the wind.Whatever the weather. 5.O moon-y heaviness in the wordautumnal,its drum beat soundau tum nal.O time of the tree frogs’ chirpingrings around evening.Au tum nal. 6.A small house. An easy chair,so comfy to collapse intoin the living room,in sunlight, in faintNovember sunlightWhoever hasn’t a house now ...Wer jetzt kein Haus hat ...longed for by those without. 7.Out walking fall evenings a man or womanlearns a lane’s moves, slopes, shadows.Aimlessness for those who have no field,no work, no stoop to sweep, nothing grownby the bushel. Ahead, accumulation of time. Who am I but an arrogant hiker, a rogue soul,too smart for faith but still admiring the magicin fallen, smoldering leaves. This is my right.Like the right of sun to burn its hot sure threat–Hurry Hurry –to the field’s ingredients for bread. 8.After an autumn rain, the sky ’s a fast-movingclock of ever-changing clouds. Cottonwoodsturn wet streets golden with their fallen leaves.East of town, husks blown from a cornfield’srows of blond-gray stocks fly across yourwindshield. Like singles from flocks of pale-feathered birds they swirl about as if they wereon their way up, up into air’s atrium. Bio:I was born and raised in Mobridge. Attended Sioux Falls College(before it was a university) and graduated from the University of Minnesota.I taught German and then German and English in public school.I've had three picture books and twelve books of poetry published.I visit my hometown whenever roads or time permit. My maiden name is Grenz.

Second Place: "Wingsprings"

by Ruth Harper

                     For Craig Howe and Charles Woodard finding ourselvesperched in an ancestral landscapepages of rolling hills unfurl into foreverpunctuated onlyby the butte marking home we pause to say good morninghi hanni waste the enormous innocent skyholds meadowlark morningsin its open palmand laterevening’s embers spillfrom its loosening graspinto the silent chasm of darkness murmuring tall-grass prairiealive with dull wood ticks and bejeweled dragonfliesknows coyote songscurious cattleand more than a fewintrepid humans each personbrings a rock to the cairn at the gateeach stone a storyand a promise: I will see you again laterToksa ake wacinyankinkte ye   Bio:Ruth Harper is Professor Emerita of Counseling and Human Developmentat South Dakota State University, where she taught from 1994 – 2016.She is the co-author of four books and many articles within her profession.She now writes poetry and loves being “Nana” to two young grandsons.

Third Place: "Late Summer, Open Field"

by Ruth Harper

Kneeling in the meadowI observe the beetle’s boudoirrich golden grassesdamp with tears of dewa garden of silkbeneath my booted foot. The scarlet robinstrides with braveryor indifference towardmy little burrowof fleshand stone. Nearby bees breathein a dense well of anthersinhale the fruity muskof many-breasted rosesa year of scentin each narrow heart. High in cottonwoodsbirds with dark beaks crouchover streaked eggsthe solitary woodpeckera maestroof potent nods. I move among dynastiesin the open green fieldtasting death in thedisconsolate rainas winter encroachesin its dark frock coat. Note: This is a response to a writing prompt to use as many words as possible from Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Beekeeper’s Daughter” in an original poem