Adult Contest Winners

We Can Always Talk about the Weather by Alida Rol   Bleached coral moans in rising seas, while parched Lake Chad sighs memories of millet, maize, and bottle gourds, of homes on unscorched earth. Daily, somewhere, raging floods rephrase the mud, emend topography, splinter lean-tos, drown the hapless, inspire throngs of refugees. Tainted air, imprinted […]

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “For Albert” by Joan Dobbie, Eugene, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Death of an Archaeologist” Marri Champié, Kuna, ID 3rd Honorable Mention: “Kaizen” by Sue Parman, Hillsboro, OR     Judge’s comments I think every judge speaks to how difficult it is to select poems for a contest. I can only

Coals by Welkin Azure   This time she sits quietly and observes them all at march. Step-falls a creaking drum, arms swishing become as tongue, the movement and the gathering bring closer the arrived. A resembling that there was and that which takes its place. She giggles now, filling us with want, desire for the

the cherries were ripe by Linda Golaszewski   the cherries were ripe near a lake big enough to be touched by tides. Cherries bent low, full no one else had picked them no one knows ripeness anymore how red the fruit can get when dead ready to be picked, the kids scattered to free the

Crow Proprietors by Judy Richardson   Before eight in the morning there is only myself in the park and a dozen crows near the trail, another thirty or so in the distance. I like how sometimes a group of them will burst like benign buckshot from one tree to another, at last settling in tiers

Honorable mentions: 1st Honorable Mention: “Pocket Change” by Ward Anderson, Ashland, OR 2nd Honorable Mention: “Pie and Coffee” by Donna McNeil, Springfield, OR 3rd Honorable Mention: “Gastropoda Magnifico” by Julie K. Caulfield, Beaverton, OR     Judge’s comments The poems in the “New Poet” category were impressive and explored a wide array of themes. I

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