IBPC WINNING POEMS in 2007, Congratulations! Options

[AMETHYST]

IBPC WINNING POEMS FOR DECEMBER 2006
Judge David Kirby

First Place:

A Poem That Thinks It Has Joined a Circus
by Liz Gallagher
Inside the Writer's Studio

A handkerchief is not an emotional hold-all.
A cup of tea does not eradicate all-smothering sensations.
A hands-on approach is not the same as a hand-on-a-shoulder
willing a chin to lift and an upper lip to stiffen.
A forehead resting on fingers does not imply that the grains
of sand in an hourglass have filtered through.
A set of eyes staring into space is not an indictment that the sun
came crashing down in the middle of the night.
A sigh that causes trembling and wobbly knees should be
henceforth and without warning trapped in a bell jar and retrained
to come out tinkling ivories with every gasp.
A poem trying to turn a sad feeling on its head does not constitute
a real poem, it is a can-can poem dancing on a pin-head
and walking a tight-rope with arms pressed tightly by its sides.



Judges Comments:

While some critics will tell you that movies about movies or plays about plays are self-involved and decadent, sometimes I feel as though poems about poems are the only ones worth writing. Why? Because, at the moment of "getting it," and this applies to the moment of reading the poem as well as writing it, there is no more electric charge than that which comes with seeing a poem strut its stuff. Of course, part of the poem's and the poet's and the reader's achievement is that none of these three essential elements of the artistic experience knows exactly how that experience works. Just as the tightrope walker has to wobble on the wire, so the poem has to shake and tremble in order to startle and amaze as much as this one does. --David Kirby




Second Place:

There Once Was a Daughter Who Lived in His Shoe
by Laurel K. Dodge
The Writer's Block

In the unmade bed, she had no legs.
The fruit that her mouth coveted

was bruised, the milk in the dark
refrigerator, watery and blue,

the bowl in the barren cupboard, cracked
and empty. Her legs were watery

and blue, her mouth unmade and bruised.
She was dark and cracked and empty.

She was covetous and blue.
She was barren. She had no fruit.

She was a cupboard, a bowl,
a refrigerator that could not be filled.

She was a bed no body slept in.
The leash waited, coiled in the dim hall.

The dog was dead, the birches, bark peeling,
bent; the hill she once scaled, slippery.

She was the dimness, the coil, the wait.
She was the peeling and the impossible

ascent. The dog was dad; she had no legs.
The dad was dead. She was unmade.



Judges Comments:

Is there anyone breathing who does not love fairy tales? The poet Miller Williams says that you ought to be able to explain any poem to a six year-old, and fairy tales do that for you. There's the surface story for the child in us all, but for you adult readers out there, there are elements reminding you that life is not all beautiful princesses and knights in shining armor. There are depths in this poem, disturbing ones: we look closely, we turn away for fear of seeing too much, and then, because of the poet's power to mesmerize, we find that we can't help looking again. --David Kirby


Third Place:

Escorting a Child Offender to a Wake
by Derek Spanfelner
The Critical Poet

Her body is crumpled plastic laid flat,
complexion waxy. Crow's feet mark
the tendencies of her nature. Her grandson,
my ward, tells me of milk and cookies,
the simple tenets she upheld, unquestioned kindnesses.
He wrote a poem about it Mom will read in eulogy.

We meet the rest outside, who greet each other
(hard-shelled and sentimental alike)
in the camaraderie of grief. This child,
who has shown younger cousins who is boss
by stripping their underwear and ignoring their pleas,
is a puffy-eyed prize in the open arms of his mother.
"My oldest (of eight)," she beams to obscure relatives.

The uncle auctions salvaged cars. Knuckles having
earned their gold, he asks questions as one acquainted
with the ease of plain answers. He offers money because
"he's a good kid at heart, always the first to help out."

I can't tell him how the boy put his hands around
their necks and threatened to kill them if they told.
Instead, I note more auspicious behavior, for the man
expects to run the value of therapy
through his calloused fingers and know
the knot will hold. I cannot tell him

that no boy is a convertible. That if a dent
could be smoothed, another is bound to surface;
that where I work, no one is ever fixed.



Judges Comments:

I'll add this poem to my list as I complete my stint as judge by saying that it, like so many others, could have easily been my first choice. This is a poem that I don't understand, though I offer my lack of comprehension as a supreme compliment. What I want to say is that this poem, like a lot of the many I have read during my time as judge, has what I call a meaningful ambiguity to it, a scary, hypnotic power which lets me know instantly that I'll be reading it again and again and getting more out of it each time. A thriller only works if the audience is slightly behind the detective's perceptions; if you know who done it from the beginning or if you never find out, you'll be disappointed, but if you're poised to shout "Aha!" a few seconds after the mystery's revealed, well, that's art, folks. I'm confident that that's what this poem is doing and will continue to do for me. That's how poetry works. --David Kirby





Honorable Mentions:

Beans (Curgina)
by Denise Ward
Lit With Kick!

September came like winter's
ailing child but
left us
viewing Valparaiso's pride. Your face was
always saddest when you smiled. You smiled as every
doctored moment lied. You lie with
orphans' parents, long
reviled.

As close as coppers, yellow beans still
line Mapocho's banks. It
leads them to the sea;
entwined on rocks and saplings, each
new vine recalls that
dawn in 1973 when
every choking, bastard weed grew wild.




Solitude
by Cherryl E. Garner
South Carolina Writer's Workshop

There is small art in solitude.
It shakes sometimes like random shock,

as though one spot explains the arc
or one fine point defines the line.

There is no talk when none's received,
when simple converse meets no mark,

as though the circle rolls the ball,
as though the line supports the box.

There is no black like night assigned
to pounding chest and clenched, cold heart,

as though the sphere explains the sky,
as though void space can break the fall,

when locking shut in one timeframe,
some voodoo shimmies out one name.




Beach
by Millard R. Howington
South Carolina Writer's Workshop

I liked to jog to
the pier my one day off and have
breakfast, gazing at an ocean
through salt stained windows.
There was a bar nearby, mainly
deserted in the off season and
I'd stop in, enjoy a brewski, flirt
a little with the waitress there;
she loved to draw my attention
to the rare big busted patron and
ask me if I knew how they got
that way. On the slow walk back
to my summer rate motel, I skirted
water's edge and wondered just
how long that little sandpiper
with the one leg was going to last.

[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for October 2007
Judge E. Ethelbert Miller

FIRST PLACE

Afterglow
by Elodie Ackerman
The Town


We crossed the country
bathed in beatitudes
the transmission leaking oil
clear across the country
toward the Orange glow hovering
on the Western horizon,
waiting to eat us alive.

My bridal veil flowed
out the window,
my virginity the hood ornament
on the old blue Mercury
as we tried marriage
on for size, rolling
the flavor on our tongues
like SweetTarts,
cheap but tasty.

As quickly as we rushed
into that foul folly,
we hesitated
to bring it to a close.

Eventually, you collapsed
Under the weight of it all,
and I, hardened by your
rage and drama, signed the papers
as quickly as I did the parchment
that got us into this mess
in the first place.

It's time to leave
the Golden Promise, retrace
that oily trail to its start,
where trees still stand after
three-hundred years and family
welcomes you home, no matter what
you've done or where you've gone
or who you've become.

But it's never quite behind you,
that Orange glow. No matter
what comes next,
it's always there, waiting
to remind you that no matter
how wise they think you are,
how worldly or sophisticated,
you're still a damned fool. Just old now,
and not so pretty anymore.


I like how innocence is thrown against the landscape in "Afterglow." So much said in the third line-- "the transmission leaking oil." Already we known this marriage can't go far. The reference to "Sweet Tarts" seems to capture the tension and arguments within the relationship. When was the last time you saw a reference to Sweet Tarts in a poem. I think I was addicted to them when I was young. I remember I didn't want to share... Even "beauty" disappears by the end of "Afterglow." It's a reminder of what you can't escape and perhaps an indication of the weight of it all. --E. Ethelbert Miller


SECOND PLACE
A Woman of Summer
by Nochipa
Pen Shells


Tell me what is more beautiful
than strength of a life
well-lived.

My hands, lean and firm,
are scarred by
youthful poverty.

while my sculpted arms,
sinewy and brown,
were chiseled by a farmer's hoe.

and these legs, are solid
and shapely, strong
as trees grown from hill-treading

My wit is sharp
as tobacco spears
from traps of star-dream slayers

while my heart beats steady
for hundreds of children
who listened to my song.

So, now that you know
I am not a T.V. woman-child,
am I less lovely?


"A Woman of Summer" celebrates the female body as well as work. It embraces the strength of masculinity by "claiming" it and challenging stereotypes. Women can be beautiful and hard too. The tercets create their own column of power and resemble a tree trunk. This poem will not disappear until one answers the question raised in its last stanza. Although the title of the poem makes a reference to summer, the woman described here is one for all seasons. --E. Ethelbert Miller



THIRD PLACE
A Good Day to Die
by Tim J. Brennan
About Poetry Forum


(i)

September in Wisconsin

is like spent wood

burning; living near

the Chippewa river

where final letters are written,

hunger is fed its last supper

and breezes cross river water

as softly as a woman's failing breath

at the bottom of her hour


(ii)

by Friday I want her

kneaded into rye,

set on a warm window sill

covered with a damp towel,

allowing her to rise

by morning


(iii)

by Sunday she couldn't see

me anymore; it was raining

and I watched my words,

pale as newsprint,

running together;

being no longer useful,

I threw them away


(iv)

a blue carnation,

white chrysanthemums;

all relative, withering

in lieu of last rites

I love the language of the first section of "A Good Day To Die." I kept saying Chippewa river and wondering what it looked like in September. The four sections of this poem capture the passing of time very well. There is an Eastern sentiment hidden in each part; it seems to embrace the visual beauty echoed by the white space between lines. Why must flowers die? --E. Ethelbert Miller

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Last Bus Home
by Judith Anne Labriola Yay Judi!
Mosaic Musings


Each day at two, I read to her, she sits
there with her thinning hair in wisps around
a wrinkled face. Old age has trapped her in
this place; she cries at night and thinks no one
can hear. A picture taken long ago
is on her stand, I wonder if it's wise
to focus on the ravages of age.
I see her gaze at it, then look away.

At three I bring her tea and Lorna Doones,
She drinks, then pats my hand and says "I love
you nurse, now get my coat and purse for I
must go -- the last bus home is leaving soon
and there's no time to stay here in this room!"



Millstone
by Kathleen Vibbert
Pen Shells


On the steps of St. James,
I'm a millstone.
A love poem. A Quaker lady.

Rare birds all around:
tails float toward the sun
with an ease that makes me envious.

I leave my idols
outside as Mass begins.
Smell the incense; resist
the urge to taste holy water

take my rosary from its convenient pocket
hammer down prayers from between my knuckles.
Communion cuts my tongue with its straight razor.

Stained glass swabs my spirit like rubbing
alcohol.
I leave my sins inside, emerge like oil
from an olive sack.

The street is dark.
My bones catch on my clothes.
A night heron waits.

In heels, I hadn't counted on the cobblestone:
The radiant sections of motor oil and rain
shapes into the heads of saints.
How can I walk over them once more?



Exchange
by DJ Vorreyer
The Town

Strolling a silent beach, air sharp
with smell of salt and fish, I stop
to uncover a hidden stone from beneath

still sand and whispering surf. I turn
the treasure over and over in my hand,
both worn, eroded by time and weather.

Green veins wind across its ochre face
like meridians on a miniature globe.
This moment is the whole world, flawed

and stunning, cold and warm, still
yet churning. Although the stone
reminds me, soothes me, I toss it

back with a flip of the wrist, watch
it skip then sink into undulating
waves of black. One may never know

the trials that etch a surface, which
rough edges worn smooth, which tumbling
journeys now calmed, which longings

brimmed to the lips then receded
unspoken, washed clean like the stone,
the heart, back into the waiting sea.



Ungodly Apartment Building
by Teresa White
Wild Poetry Forum


I wait on the stoop of a Sunday morning
and never once seen nobody slicked up
like Uncle Jake used to be
or any lady all fancy with a hat.

Why I couldn't count one cherry nor bird to eat it
just these woolies come down
over their prissy pink ears
and my guess is not a one was headed
up to the Baptists nor the Catholics neither.

Lil' Tim had a whistle
and sometimes he'd join me and give 'er a blow
when the rouged-up frillies from Apartment 2-B
come draggin' out 'bout ten.
Mama wouldn't say but I knew
they weren't telling nursery rhymes
to rich Mr. Black.

That Tim, even he didn't believe in Jesus
so at night 'fore I settled right fine in bed,
I prayed hard that those fancy ladies would see the light
and now I had to add Tim too.