THE WINNERS of THE WRITER'S ALMANAC POETRY CONTEST
We received quite a number of poems for our contest celebrating National Poetry Month. The assignment was to write a two stanza poem that talked about the love of words and poetry.
Our winning poems are listed below.
Untitled
'Tis nearly too much to ask
Of most any mortal hand
To lift the pen for such a grand,
Supremely glorious task.
Yet summit this height I shall try
For 'tis as bold, worthy, and right
As when moon bows down, following night,
Sun crowns himself king of the sky!
I love thee immeasurably, Mother Tongue,
I love thee with all my soul's eternal worth.
To speak thy words finely is triumph won,
Feathered hope fulfilled, spring's divine rebirth!
To as far and wide as voices can run
May your children soundly sweeten the Earth!
L.M. Williams III
The Ashbery Farm
I live not far now from the old farm
Where the poet John Ashbery grew up,
In the apple country by the lake,
A white frame house of modest size
On a remote road a couple of miles
From the nearest dying town.
Reading him is often like
Skating on a frozen river in a fog,
Glimpsing images through the ice
Drifting beneath,
Or of some deserted city where you
Feel the sleeve tug of dreams
That vanish when you turn around –
Words that could mean anything,
Or everything,
And nothing.
And he lived there once.
Frank J. Edwards
Bird
That such a small word
could contain so many feathers
and songs, and all that down,
white and grey dreamed-of- softness,
not to mention
legs, and beaks and eyes,
nestled like tiny jewels
among the fluff.
Then there are those little hearts,
keeping time for all those songs
that will cross oceans,
light on mountain tops
sweeten the lives of lonely stars,
only to return home
to nest in one small word.
Emily Blair Stribling
THE 500 SYLLABLE HAIKU
I know people generally like poets
to keep it short. The haiku form
is the logical extension of that.
It’s a rainy day in early spring,
chilly and dripping,
new green still spare,
splashes of yellow. I sit down
in a comfortable chair
with a good book
and fall asleep.
I am in heaven.
Basho could have caught
such a moment
in seventeen syllables.
Imagine going through life
talking like that.
But we don’t, and that is why
haiku seem so
profound, mysterious—
why they are poetry.
But another way
is to allow ourselves
a page or two, or three or four.
I am working on a new form,
the 500 syllable haiku.
A little more space
for interesting language.
Some vivid, accurate
description. Even the odd
beauty of digression.
I am far from perfecting it.
You can read just the last
three lines of my poems
if you prefer.
That might work.
Or, you can take the time
to read the whole thing.
Either way, short or long,
it’s the rounding of silence
after the words stop,
the feeling around them,
that really matters.
Howard Nelson