Contests

Murder and Butchery These days I am far removed from the realities of murder and butchery, but in my childhood days of rabbits in the hutch and mail order chicks I was very familiar with death and parting out an animal for the table. When the peeping box arrives there is wonder and joy and […]

Searching for Love on the Deschutes River He floats, riding rapids of his imagination. Next, stumbles rocky banks. Disregards the easy spots to cast a line. Hungry for a dream just out of sight where light meets the invitation of shadow. Wades deep in fast water. Swings rod. Sends the fly (a hook disguised) to

2024 OPA Adult Contest – Form Category Prose Poem – Winners Judge’s Overall Comments: While an old form, the prose poem has not been washed of its controversy. Poets have long argued the merit of the prose poem as a form—even contesting if it is a form at all, or just lovely prose. On the

Brewer’s Blackbird Did I dream the sun on my arm, the dike along the riverbank held fast by bones of forgotten floods? Who changed the sky while goldfinch sat sentry on the rose trellis? The air, sweetened with new mown hay cut just ahead of weather carried our voices to crows on the fence line,

Small Pleasures           “This is beautiful country.”                        John Brown commenting on the hills of Virginia                        riding to the gallows, sitting on his coffin. My father sits outdoors enjoying an evening breeze off the Delta. I see only a red dot, the glow of his cigarette, and wonder if God was taking a cigarette break when a

Zen on the Lizard      —from the Cornish Lis and Ard, meaning roughly ‘high place’ Air salts the end of the world near serpentine cliffs, stone dark greens spiced with red, once submerged now relentlessly scoured. The Atlantic Ocean’s teal knives hew below, but not without a windy sense of humor—over there, the frog,

2024 OPA Adult Contest – Theme Category “The Coast”– Winners Judge’s Overall Comments: Thanks to the OPA Conference Committee for the opportunity to judge poems in “The Coast” category in the 2024 Adult Contest. I was very impressed with the number of submissions in this category and by the quality of those submissions. It struck

when greeting the ocean for the first time, take time to notice how a child opens her arms to the roar of waves, mimic her acceleration, her glee notice how the old dog threads gently on the sand to sit at the water’s edge wonder the story he might tell about his wait anticipating his

Autumn Sea You’ve come to hear the rush and release over the sands, the lungs of the ocean breathing. Sentinel stones anchored on the coast witness fire on the water as the sun dies in October flames. Anything that ventures into that glow is washed gold, and gold paints the rocky headland. A hem of

Moon Motion Sunset came, a gray mass showing nothing but waves crashing over rocks where gulls huddled hiding from evening mist & the sound is all nature     roar     crash advance    recede    eternal motion. How many generations have sat staring from this beach ebb & flow     seeing their own lives reflected       our coming our going   &