Adult Contest Winners

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “Visit to Seattle” by Lucy Cotter, Portland, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Response to Tess Gallagher’s poem ‘He Would Have, in Moon Crossing Bridge’” by Bren Carver, Newport, OR 3rd Honorable Mention: “Coming Home” by Emily Antonia Fox García, Vancouver, WA Judge’s comments I had to remind myself I was judging […]

Searching for the True Gesture #2 by Joshua Boettiger My Grandfather has my mother sit on her hands so she can learn to talk without gesticulating. She grows up and becomes a dancer. I flail like a man without a piñata, who senses there might be one nearby. I reach for things elsewhere— the perfect

Yelapa Regret by Lois Rosen Four-legged, seaside swain, sashays into my no-door, open-air palapa along with smells of grilling tortillas raucous chachalaca birdcall clatter. Light brown, maybe a Labrador mix more surfer dude than simpering pet a guest without reservations, here for a one-nighter, perhaps longer, a stray with no collar. I back away fretting

Picking Peaches by Judson Hyatt The way they are placed gently in the bottom of the galvanized bucket so their sibs have cushion when they arrive. The way the bucket fills quickly one after another so the late-comers can peep over the rim. The way heat blasts and sun-shade hats are needed to avoid the

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “Rowing Machine” by Judith Barrington, Portland, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Renault Shocked” by Charlie Southerland, Viola, AR 3rd Honorable Mention: “Tips” by John McPherson, Portland, OR Judge’s comments What a pleasure to dive into a great wodge of poems all 20 lines or less, by OPA members, and let them

Dream: At the Beach by Robin Rosen Chang [gview file=”https://oregonpoets.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Rosen_Chang-Dream-at-the-Beach.pdf”] Robin Rosen Chang’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, Zone 3, Paterson Literary Review, Yemassee Journal, Vinyl Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and other journals. She has an MFA in Poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. An

Colors of My Mother by Janice Hoffman My mother was born orange and grew in the 1930s to bright greens, the ones like the optimistic and piercing wings of parrots. Her teens were her ragtime of red, flaming reds like the color of her lips in that picture where she’s in a taffeta gown in

Corpse Walker by David Allen Sullivan A man was there, walking a few paces ahead of the corpse carrying a basket. Every few minutes he would reach into the basket, grab some fake paper money, and toss it high in the air. You know the ritual, don’t you? It’s called “buying your way into the

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “In Memory of Peter Sears” by Doug Stone, Albany, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Walk on Big Stump Beach” by Kari Wergeland, Yachats, OR 3rd Honorable Mention: “Adiabatic Flame” by Shari Crane, Portland, OR Judge’s comments It’s been a tremendous pleasure and privilege spending time with the poems in this category—thank

Oregon Poetry Association Fall 2018 Contest Winners   OPA congratulates all the winners below, and thanks them and all the poets who entered for sharing their work.   www.wordpress-687676-2268923.cloudwaysapps.com     Poet’s Choice — Jennifer Richter, Judge 1st Place: “Dream: At the Beach” by Robin Rosen Chang, Westfield, NJ 2nd Place: “Colors of My Mother”