IBPC Winning Poems, 2013, Congratulations Poets! Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for January 2013
Judged by Deborah Bogen


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First Place:


Down the Street
by Fred Longworth, of The Waters Poetry Workshop


The kite slings upward into the wind,
and for a moment the two boys shout
like pole vaulters clearing a higher bar.
Then it dives hard toward the grass,
and the boys look her way because they want
to holler things she would scold them
for saying. And faintly out of somewhere
only she can go, she hears two pairs of shoes
crunching caramel-colored sycamore leaves
along a riparian trail. One runner chases
the other, and she can feel the hammers
of their legs against the anvils of the path,
and taste their salty newborn sweat.
She marshals her mind back to the yard
and to the plastic laundry basket
on the table by the dryer, with its molting
cotton towels and wrinkled garments
that she's been folding and unfolding,
and folding and unfolding again,
so that the boys won't think she's watching.
And in a part of town she never goes to,
the father of the boys retreats
to a barstool farthest from the jukebox
with its chance encounters, and closest
to a nook of shadows. He licks the salt
from the rim of a cocktail glass,
and wonders if he has the gumption
to go home, or resign himself
to sleeping on the sofa at the office.
As he taps his fingers on his mobile phone,
miles away a second phone is waiting—.
Maybe it will join the first in voice,
or share with it the void of silence.
The liquidambar trees are dancing,
and the boys are running with their string.
The wind is picking up, and the kite
will either lift off, or it won't.


"Down the Street" brings to mind a Hopper painting with its dark vision of American family life, or perhaps lack-of-family life. Reading the three scenes [the boy’s kite run, the mother’s clothes folding and the father’s drinking] I was struck by the feeling that although nothing is working quite right in the relationships portrayed, there remains a connected dis-connectedness among the players. The closing lines are perfect – a truism that you cannot argue with, but one that gives no comfort. --Deborah Bogen


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Second Place:


for what is given
by Dale McLain, of Wild Poetry Forum


I saw the fallen stars in the orchard yesterday,
well not an orchard but a stand of pear trees
bent and knobby as that jazzman from Metairie.
I walked there to give my thanks up to the wind,
but looked down and saw them there, stars strewn
like charred jacks, thorned and dead amid the pears.

I wore love like a treasured broach, my children
the sapphires and the pearls, worn close to my throat.
Then I saw your eyes, no, I mean the sky, but blue
and impossible. In Texas winter is a drifter that comes
to sleep in the barn. He leaves things behind, a crease
in the hay, a sprinkle of ash, stars burnt like bones.

I remembered my blessings, these boots, this ridge
where someone thought to plant some pears.
I thought of all the days gone past, a tree in bloom,
a song, a cry. There are stars hiding in the bright sky,
glittering stones set fast in gold. I lack for nothing
save a voice clear and true enough for this quiet joy.


"for what is given" is either prayer or odd explanation, perhaps both. The voice of the speaker is compelling and rich (“charred jacks, thorned and dead amid the pears”) even while it is conversational, interrupting itself to tell us what it meant to say. How to resist a poem that says “Then I saw your eyes, no, I mean the sky, but blue and impossible.” --Deborah Bogen


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Third Place:


An A-Z of fruit: A for Apricots
by Marilyn Francis, of The Write Idea


It was Monday and the grandmother was buying apricots
from the stall in Church Street market. She squeezed the fruits
between her thumb and first finger, testing for ripeness,
feeling the whiskery skins brush the flesh of her hand.
She chose three fruits to be wrapped.

Later, the child opened the wrapping,
unveiled the unfamiliar fruit,
and refused to eat.

She smoothed out the paper,
saw a map traced in brown ink,
fingered its contours and pathways,
but couldn’t figure a way through the
wastes of marshland, and the land where
there be dragons.

The grandmother ran a blade around the fruit,
tore the halves apart.
The child still refused to eat.

She took the three discarded stones
wrapped them in the crumpled map
buried them in a secret place.



"An A-Z of fruit: A for Apricots" creates a small but marvelous world, at once storybook like and strange. There is a clear sense of ritual and an ambiguous sense of identity – who are these people — gypsies or the boring neighbors in the next apartment? If the child is a girl the ambiguity is increased. Is the “she” in this poem the child, or could it be the grandmother? Finally, the poem’s sound effects are great – e.g., “whiskery skins brush the flesh.” --Deborah Bogen


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Honorable Mention:


Christmas, Connecticut, 1960
by Christopher T. George, of Desert Moon Review


I was in school in Connecticut that December of 1960,
“The Little Drummer Boy” hung on the brisk air.

I was eleven—I identified with the song about the boy who had come
to honor him and its insistent chorus, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

Our hero of the moment was John Kennedy, the clean-cut New Englander
who'd be our new President. A new leader and a new Pope: John XXIII
—advent candles following a long darkness.

Even now, fifty years later, I thrill to that song
thrumming in my ears—pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

Witnesses said the noises did not sound like gunshots—
unforeseen—like hammerblows—pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

So many bullet holes, so many nail holes—
Black crepe and muffled drums—

Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum. . . pa-rum-pa-pum-pum. . .
pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.


"Christmas, Connecticut, 1960" is a vivid photo of a time and a weirdly accurate portrayal of the way kids, perhaps all of us, re-constellate events in ways that make a particular sense given our vantage point in the world. The merger of the Drummer Boy song with the Kennedy assassination is exactly the kind of thing an eleven-year-old would do. --Deborah Bogen


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[Cleo_Serapis]

Winning Poems for April 2013
Judged by Linda Sue Grimes




First Place:


Requiescat in Pace
by Brenda Levy Tate, of PenShells

I have made him no marker; his name twists
in silence beneath a granite rock laid above his sleep.
To anyone who did not love him, he rots anonymous –
only a dead horse, scooped under and gone.

From this new grave, edged with springtime clay,
a ribbon of melt water leaks and wends its slow
journey to his fence, the alder copse, my house-
shadow sharp and pointed across a forsaken pasture.

He’s been running these fields for thirty-three Junes
burning his coat to ginger; Octobers falling cool over
his starry head. At the end, I slipped him treats - molasses
and grated apple - which he chewed from duty and perhaps,
because he knew this was our last gift to each other.

The trickle shrinks and stops. Out on the road, a black
pickup kicks up more dust for his blanket. It is the morning
of the third day and his stone sits heavier than I ever
imagined it would.


Requiescat in Pace” dramatizes the despair of losing an animal friend, yet it also celebrates the gratitude of having experienced that relationship. The parallel of the melting ice and melting presence of the horse infuses this poem with its stunning vision, while the third stanza crystallizes the history of the dignified animal’s life. The final image of the “stone sit[ting] heavier than I ever / imagined it would” captures the speaker’s sorrow with beauty as well as clarity. --Linda Sue Grimes


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Second Place:


Nevada, U.S. Highway 6
by Kim Cassidy, of Wild Poetry Forum

Almost home. New Jersey to California
in four days with the promise of divorce
at the end. This new road seemed to go forever,
nothing but brown and dust and brush--
miles and miles, hundreds behind us,
hundreds more up ahead. Love takes these treks
and sometimes strange things happen, like the cow
that appeared, steadfast as a ship's anchor
claiming her spot dead center as if to say:
Slow down. What's your hurry?
It worked, because when you're speeding
down the highway like somebody's fury,
black and white coming up sudden against
a deep magenta sky makes you put on your brakes.
You get hungry driving, thirsty too,
and sometimes you have to pee. Basic needs
kick in when there's so much nothing,
not even a radio station to dial in.
The sign was innocuous enough. There's a lunar crater
up ahead. Well, I've never done it in a
moon crater and I figure, here's my chance.
What the hell. One last go for the sake
of prosperity. No remorse, but life
likes to teach and I learned that day
that while marriage may be hard, craters
are hard and pointy.


In “Nevada, U.S. Highway 6,” the speaker deftly juggles emotions as he completes a long road trip from the East Coast to the West Coast. Bearing the heavy burden of an impending divorce, he dramatizes a light-heartedness that promises to keep him in balance. Image choices such as “the cow / that appeared, steadfast as a ship's anchor,” and “craters” that are “hard and pointy” help create in the piece a rich texture that complements the confusion of an uncertain future. --Linda Sue Grimes


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Third Place:


The rising song of you
by Jude Goodwin, of The Waters

The sun comes in like a quiet cat
one paw print on the wall,
one on the piano,
it purrs by my slipper
as I write this morning hymn
to you, an anthem
to the way you lift the coffee
to your lips, the way you turn
when I speak.
And when morning
begs at the window
we laugh,
the cat and I,
all spread on the coverlet
warmed by the rising
song of you.


“The rising song of you” playfully portrays not only the creative process but also the delight experienced by a lover for a beloved. The “quiet cat” that subtly insinuates herself into the piece as she represents “the sun” adds magic to this little musical drama. --Linda Sue Grimes


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