Thank you so much to everyone who entered our annual poetry contest. This year Dana Yost judged the landscape category, and Lee Ann Roripaugh judged the portrait category. Please enjoy this year’s winning poems 🙂
First Place
Sudden Weather By Todd Williams Maybe we were never closer than when buried in the basement beneath mounds of musty blankets as sirens pierced alien skies turning orange, then red, then black. From wind-rattled windows we searched roiling heavens as sirens wailed and the transistor radio sang along in pitched squeals and howls, these sonic storms filling tight quarters and our imaginations fully. Together, we'd close our eyes as hailstones began tapping and then crashing to Earth all around, leaving cracked glass and bent metal behind in the damp afterglow. And sometimes, in the small space between sleep and being awake, I still feel your soft and firm hand reach to my shoulder, quiet calm tenor of your voice at my ear, and the perfume of your coffee and cigarette-stained breath saying, "Don't worry; it will be all right," the threat of sudden weather not enough to break the strength of family, even after all these years in your absence.
Second Place
Du Fu Proclaims his Love for East River
Stars hang
all across the vast plain;
the moon bobs
in the flow of the great river.
Thoughts Written While Traveling at Night by Du Fu
By Eric Schulte
I don’t know about you, but
I think Du Fu would have
loved East River.
If Du Fu lived here
he would say the sky
is all that matters,
painted in watercolor blue
and showing a pathway
to heaven.
He’d say
the first day of August
is too early to declare
summer over.
He’d say get outside
and enjoy the tangerine sunrise
or bright moon
lighting up the prairie.
His advice would be
to pack all the colors and sounds
you can for the coming
cold winter.
He’d say
this is not “Flyover Country”
and any exile
near a field
of sunflowers
would be just fine.
He’d say baseball in summer
or football on a glorious
Friday night in autumn
creates community.
He’d say a glass of wine
is best enjoyed
at a bar on Phillips Avenue,
or in a cabin at Lake Kampeska,
or anywhere good friends meet.
He’d say a cup of coffee
at the Red Rooster in Aberdeen
is the perfect way
to start your day.
He’d say the pasque flower
is a mirror to the soul, and every bit
as beautiful as the peach blossom.
I like to think
he would be at peace
living here.
I like to think
he would call it home.
Third Place
Rules for Flight By Kathy Bjornestad On a windy day a flock of winter geese break and seam together, battle windy chaos as they fight to hold form. . Rules for flight dissolve upon that January day. The wind’s hand opens, tosses like confetti—feathered bodies, stitched in drunken patterns, scrambled etchings in the sky.