oregonpoetry

Ghazal in June by Louise Barden   In summer heat your body wants to feel the wind until you wish that you could steal the wind.   The world’s a fragrant orange, sweet and juicy ripe, the scent you catch under its tender peel, the wind.   This hour has brought green leaf and purple […]

Today I Am Venus by Shawn Aveningo Sanders   Of course, Alexandros, I’ll gladly pose for you. Your reputation precedes you—the way you mold your models.  I’ve heard stories of your jealous wife. Will she be joining us?   Is this your first time? Sculpting an amputee, I mean. I hope you’re not alarmed by

The Steens by Janna Roselund   The spirits of horses are alive in these mountains. When the moon rises—just there between the dark notch of hills you can see them satin, dappled slowly moving behind the bare trunks of trees their smooth necks bowing among the branches.   The spirits of many horses are alive

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

Knowledge of Good and Evil by Penelope Scambly Schott   I am a way better biter than Eve or Adam. I go at apples entirely, core and seeds, leaving nothing but stem. I have built my house out of stems, and between them, a window. All these ageing years l have stared out. Eve swallowed

Fishing Indian Creek by Marri Champié               Across vast prairie a train slants away;             I hear it whistle at Indian Creek Bridge.   I cannot sleep for fish dreams, glittering smolt like tears on a stringer.               You stepped across pools sailed with golden leaves             each rock a metronome for years

Persephone by Carol Clark Williams   Foolish child, despite her mother’s wild-eyed searching and entreating, she was enticed into eating what she should not while the people above her starved and prayed, and Demeter moved earth and Sun to bring her daughter home.   Like Eve, who fed on fruit with cyanide seeds, she returned,

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “Monday after Rain” by Michael Hanner, Eugene, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Fourth Wave” by Linda Ferguson, Portland, OR 3rd Honorable Mention: “Spinning Song” by Toni Hanner, Eugene, OR   Judge’s comments The poets of Oregon have so much to say to the world. They see a frayed time and write