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IBPC Poem of the year, May 2009 - April 2010, Congratulations Poets! Ouija from Pen Shells |
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Sep 6 10, 17:53
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Mosaic Master
Group: Administrator
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Real Name: Lori Kanter
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Referred By:Imhotep
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POEM OF THE YEARMay 2009-April 2010 Judged by Dana GoodyearPoem of the Year Ouijaby Lois P. Jones Submitted by Pen ShellsSecond Place Eureka Springsby Jude Goodwin Submitted by The WatersThird Place Eden in Winterby Russel Smith Submitted by The Write Idea
Winning Poems and Judges Comments
Poem of the Year Ouija by Lois P. Jones Pen Shells Second Place, April 2010
"Green sunflowers trembled in the highlands of dusk and the whole cemetery began to complain with cardboard mouths and dry rags.” –Federico Garcia Lorca
You asked for an R, for the ripening of olives in your garden, the red-tailed hawk
angling over the road, the path that took you down and away
from the empty room of the body. The R of reasons, of the ringing that breaks
in a yellow bell tower – the only sound after the round of shots that shattered
an afternoon. And the T can only be more time, time to be the clock or the weather vane,
the twilight through your windows on the page, your pen once again plow
and the places you took me where I abandoned faith.
A is alone, how you never wanted it, preferring the company of bishop’s
weed and drowsy horses—the warm trace of the lily and a flame
for the night with its black mouth that sings your saeta.
G is the ghost bird that hovered at Fuente Grande that you did not wish
to come, for the grave some say you dug with your own hands,
empty as a mouth full of snow, as a sky that held no moon that night
only its pure shape to stow all the names of the dead.
"Ouija," supposedly, comes from a meeting of the French and German words for "yes"—so we can fairly translate it "yes yes." That describes a bit of what went on in my head as I read this poem: a gratified affirmation of the choices made by the poet at each turn. Any ouija poem written in the wake of James Merrill's epic "The Changing Light at Sandover" is somewhat indebted to that work; Merrill's influence operates subtley here, in phrases like "the empty room of the body" and in the slant rhyme "trace/flame." But the most gorgeous lines feel freshly observed: "A is alone, how you never wanted it,/ preferring the company of bishop's/ weed and drowsy horses." The poem—melancholy, elegiac—concludes with a sharp reminder of the insistence and inevitability of renewal. --Dana Goodyear
Second Place Eureka Springs by Jude Goodwin The Waters January 2010
Now that’s a big Jesus and it’s not how I know him at all. Imagine living under someone’s father image like that, looks like he’s blocking the door. “I do this for you, my son.” Look mister, I’m hankering for East. I’ve done the Berlin Wall slab, the Liberty replica, time’s come for passing the great white milk carton. The real Jesus never grew old and he was skinny. I held him once, in college. I could feel his ribs. His heart hammered like a ruby-throated hummingbird, I felt the wind from his wings for years. This big theme park messiah, unrevolving and without an elevator, this isn’t Jesus. It’s his body guard. It’s the man blocking the tunnel down to the bomb shelters. It’s the guy who won’t let you into the ER to watch your mother die. It’s the cop who holds you back on the grass as your friends and ex-wife move all your belongings out of the house and into a cube van, it’s the shape you make on the cellar floor where you wait for the end. The real Jesus played guitar, bending his body around the music like a gourd. His skin was brown and smelled of cinnamon.
I love the spirited, folksy way this poem comes on—it's like the character who sits down next to you on the bus and surprises you with an engaging conversation. The turn comes a third of the way through, when the big-hearted, slightly loopy generalizations become suddenly intimate: "The real/ Jesus never grew old and he was skinny./ I held him once, in college. I could feel/ his ribs. His heart hammered/ like a ruby-throated hummingbird,/ I felt the wind from his wings/ for years." The voice from here forward is personal, propulsive, and angered; the energy never slackens, and yet the mystery of the encounter at the poem's heart is allowed to remain. --Dana Goodyear
Third Place Eden in Winter by Russel Smith The Write Idea March 2010
In a downtown park I find a marble Eve with broken hands and feet lying awake by a sleeping man, where he had carried her.
Unconscious, still he keeps her among the frost-bit weeds, a crippled captive to oversee his wretchedness.
New life sings in the branches, rattles the clinging leaves, chases the hard snow crunching sweet as halvah, beneath my feet.
Each lengthening day the sun climbs higher over us. I circle here; I listen to her muted voice.
She tells me we are naked, lacking even skins of animals, and having eaten of the tree of life, we could live forever.
This poem is simple, tender, and abidingly strange. The speaker, at first detached, moves to occupy a position of centrality, as his or her perspective is increasingly identified with that of the "sleeping man" of the first stanza--an "unconscious," lonely wretch, passed out on a park bench beside a stolen, broken statue of a woman. But what sticks with me most about this poem is the haunting prophecy of its final stanza, wherein the statue speaks: "She tells me we are naked,/ lacking even skins of animals,/ and having eaten of the tree of life,/ we could live forever." --Dana Goodyear
THE JUDGE:
Dana Goodyear has worked at The New Yorker since 1999. For four years, she was a senior editor; now she is a staff writer, covering a wide variety of subjects for the magazine, and often writing about literary and cultural figures. (Some of her work can be read at www.danagoodyear.com). She is also the author of Honey and Junk, a collection of poems, which was published by W.W. Norton in 2005. In addition to The New Yorker, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Review of Books, and many other magazines and periodicals. She is on the board of Red Hen Press, a non-profit publisher in Los Angeles, and teaches literary nonfiction, with an emphasis on new media, at the University of Southern California. “I [heart] Novels”—her article about Japanese cell-phone novelists, written while in Tokyo as a Japan Society Media Fellow—was included in The Best Technology Writing 2009, edited by Steven Johnson. In 2010, she co-founded Figment, an online platform designed to encourage young adults to read and write fiction on their computers and their mobile phones.
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsCollaboration feeds innovation. In the spirit of workshopping, please revisit those threads you've critiqued to see if the author has incorporated your ideas, or requests further feedback from you. In addition, reciprocate with those who've responded to you in kind. "I believe it is the act of remembrance, long after our bones have turned to dust, to be the true essence of an afterlife." ~ Lorraine M. KanterNominate a poem for the InterBoard Poetry Competition by taking into careful consideration those poems you feel would best represent Mosaic Musings. For details, click into the IBPC nomination forum. Did that poem just captivate you? Nominate it for the Faery award today! If perfection of form allured your muse, propose the Crown Jewels award. For more information, click here! "Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up." ~ Early detection can save your life.MM Award Winner
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