Honorable mentions:
1st Honorable Mention: “No Bonsai Anymore” by Brigitte Goetze, Philomath, OR
2nd Honorable Mention: “The Fixer” by Toni Hanner, Eugene, OR
3rd Honorable Mention: “Rudy” by Linda Ferguson, Portland, OR
Judge’s comments
Each of the poems that I chose were poems that possess stickiness, haunting me, charming me, challenging me, making me reach back to them. They accomplish this attraction variously through diction, poise, topic, point of view and yes, voice.
The winning poem and the runner-up, though quite different in tone and style, both take something old, (form) the ghazal or (artifact) the objectified female, and make it the vehicle for new conspiracy, surprise and fresh re-cognitions. I love the shifting seasonal iterations between the “eel” words and “wind” in the Ghazal. A coy intelligence animates the encounter in the Venus poem, challenging the casual male erotic assumptions in classical western art.
The third-place poem entices the lover of open spaces and horses with spare elegance only to withdraw the spell in two final pivots not of closure but rather seasoned disclosure. And release. Each of the honorable mention poems occasions discovery and/or renewal out of a loss. As we read, the accounts are recalibrated. The speaker commands presence.
This was an honor. Toward the end there were fourteen poems I was in conversation with, trying to settle on which ones most satisfied their unique overtures and ambitions. Which were sticky good?
—Tim Whitsel