Contests

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

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