Adult Contest Winners

Mates Nita Countryman Seven mergansers drift in the calm— one swims to the side, apart. Black crowns bob on the trailing foam. Seven mergansers drift in the calm. Six birds move like swans in tandem, paired for a season in limerent heart. Seven mergansers drift in the calm. One swims to the side, apart. Poet’s […]

Judged by Marc Janssen 1st Honorable Mention: “Pale Ring” by Charles Castle 2nd Honorable Mention:” Here and Gone” by Jim Johnson 3rd Honorable Mention: “Leaf Ballet” by Emory D. Jones The triolet is a cousin to the rondeau, a French invention and one that was popular in the seventeenth century. The requirements to write a

IN ATHENS WITH MARGUERITE Connie Soper As daylight faded and before evening breezes  gifted relief, we climbed rickety stairs to the roof.  I could say we were wicks on candles anticipating the match: spark to flame, the future  all around us no matter where we looked.  You might remember it differently; how we rose,  rung

Beethoven Never Saw an Ocean Colette Tennant But he felt its pulse in his wild, salty blood, so that’s the first thing he will do in heaven – follow the breeze to where sand starts, everything drifting down toward adagio swells, plagal cadence waves, gulls’ glissando, his coat tails unfurled by the aleatoric wind, the

The Way Donna Prinzmetal The way light from the window touches the dust and the dust  hangs there, a promise or a threat. The way a hand hovers above a thigh but doesn’t descend and doesn’t and doesn’t and then does. The way a candle flickers, its bright conversation, sheets tangle like roots in and

Judged by John Brehm 1st Honorable Mention: “Anticipation Spells” by Linda Ferguson 2nd Honorable Mention: “The Pleasures of Whorehouse Meadow” by David Hedges 3rd Honorable Mention: “The Things We Do to Generate Hope” by Michelle Williams

OPA congratulates all the winners below, and thanks themand all the poets who entered for sharing their work. www.wordpress-687676-2268923.cloudwaysapps.com                                       Contest Chair: Stella Jeng Guillory Poet’s Choice — Lynn Otto, Judge 1st Place: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Barbara Blanks, Garland, TX 2nd Place: “Arachnidæa: Line Drawings” by Stephen Pollock, Mebane, NC 3rd Place: “Mind

Poet bio Danielle Stricklin has been writing poetry since the fifth grade, when her teacher praised her use of metaphor in a creative writing assignment describing the word “greed.” She studied poetry, literature, and gender politics at the University of Montana and currently lives in Eugene, Oregon, writing, running, and caring for her family and

Original Face by Michael Selker When our friend turned sixty she wanted a new life, wanted to tuck up and tighten, wanted to get rid of those lines When people and things fell apart in her life and her car made a funny noise in neutral, she took control and hired a plastic surgeon. Now

My Selfie Poem by Cynthia Jacobi I have middle aged children I wonder at their infant survival under my care       and wish I could do it over My thoughts skip and pause       as might a yellow pencil       put to lined paper I remember a collage of shoes       lost front teeth