Winners Circle
Please join us in celebrating our 2022 contest winners. We are honored to share their poetry and their stories.
POETRY
OUR 2024 WINNERS
First Place
Bridge Over A Bone River
By Lollie Butler
Bridge Over A Bone River
by Lollie Butler
In a border town built on drought and tourista dollars,
I walk through stalls of silver and tequila
while along la frontera,
two men and a woman like flat, handcuffed.
One will not live to be deported.
Crossing this “bridge over a bone river”,
each became a Christo, carrying the cross of his own body.
In the end, God became a tree, a lizard or a cloud.
When the sun over Sonora hammers,
every living thing is pummeled down into the earth
where it waits for nightfall to rise and howl.
This is a siesta town but it is my country north of here
sleeps. Under our eyes, the nameless dead collect.
We will awaken when a ‘migra’s rifle fires
or when the ghost of compassion returns to ask
what we’ve done with our inheritance.
One wears a ragged shirt, the other a baseball cap
and the woman ears a crucifix around her neck.
I might forget them
had I not seen their faces as I drive north toward home,
silver bangles cold against my wrists.
Second Place
Instead of Visiting You in the
Memory Center
By Chelsea Kerwin
Instead of Visiting You in the Memory Center
by Chelsea Kerwin
I vacuumed, watered the plants, grocery shopped,
worked weekends for time and a half pay. I walked
the dog until he started limping, took him to two vets,
purchased him an orthopedic bed with oversized bolsters.
No one used the word degenerative, but the cabinets
filled with pain pills and peanut butter. I moved in with
the man I want to spend my life with, he taught me
how to use his record player, how the needle recreates
the song by soaring over deviations etched in the vinyl.
We people-watched at the festival, I bought a flower crown,
the mead and Shakespeare made the world spin.
I read a book full of rotting snow and frozen-shut eyes,
outside a blizzard, inside Ares staring out the window.
I decorated the townhouse with gnomes and fairy lights,
travelled to Italy, got engaged on a cliffside in Sorrento,
ranked wedding venues all over Maryland. We drove out
to Massapequa for grandma’s funeral, I made a speech
in your place. I told everyone over and over you were ok,
you were comfortable, happy. Her death couldn’t touch you.
I stayed with mom after her surgery, took out her trash,
washed her hair in the kitchen sink, filled her birdfeeder.
I made a photo album of our last family trip to Alaska.
In my favorite, a small figure snaps a picture of a mountain.
I put a broken record back in its sleeve. I kissed my good
boy goodbye between two farewell shots at the final vet.
I smoked pot and watched black and white movies,
I searched the basement for mold and mildew, cried
and journaled and didn’t even bother railing at God.
I slept in and made love to my fiancée. On karaoke night
I sang Sister Golden Hair and Love is a Rose. I ate mushrooms
and visited you astrally. You were alright without me. Why not?
Didn’t I live as you taught me? If guiltily, if sometimes low,
I still caught the occasional sunset, stepped out into several
warm weather rainstorms, I cooked crispy skin chicken thighs
and danced like a jackass in the kitchen to our favorite songs.
Third Place
I Tell the Ocean
By Hayden Park
I Tell the Ocean by Hayden Park
by Hayden Park
I tell the ocean the things I used to tell you, these
lulling waves that wash my soul clean of the
worries that always whisper at my knees, my
fingers, the parts of my body that go untouched,
and I’ll make do with the sand, instead of your touch
that I craved so much. Sitting on the rocks like
some expired sunrise, today, I’ll tell the ocean
everything I used to tell you yesterday, all the things
I missed so much. I hope those crashing waves
will remind me of all that old bitter pessimism, like
kites on the horizon, so wonderfully far away, so far
even if I close my eyes I’ll never see them again.
I tell my violin the things I used to tell you. While
playing the melancholy lines, I leaned in, and,
sotto voce, my bow told me to sever the ties that held me
like a vice to your heart. The melodies lilted like the
morning, and I realized I’d been waiting for something
that would have burnt me like cold ashes biting ice
over long-cremated hope. When my violin speaks to me,
I realize it’s my own voice, echoing inside all this
ancient wood. The Plowden del Gesù was made from
old-world tonewood, and now I breathe in that old
Cremonian air, the faint pencil tracings, measurements
like a tailor around my breast. Your touch is like this
one, with its secrets held in the intense varnish, and
I wonder how your arms will feel around my waist.
I’ll tell you the things I used to keep to myself. I
will be the first by your bedside, reciting stories
that are more than fiction. In our memories, we lived
so vividly and laughed like there was everything to
live for. I want to jump off this waterfall with you
and slide down because that silent rain can. I
wonder if it’s just the drizzle collecting on the
sidewalk, dappling like a forest floor, or tears,
like the drizzle on your face falling from windows
I left open. I didn’t rush to close them this time,
not wanting to miss that cool mist through the screen
on my cheek. And I wanted to hear the sky bleed
to remind me even heaven has wounds like mine.
WINNERS
About Lollie, Chelsea & Hayden
first place winner
Lollie Butler
Lollie Butler holds a fellowship in Literature from the state of Arizona. An MFA graduate from the University of Arizona, she teaches Creative Writing through the OLLI-U of A Program. Her awards include winner of the Robert Frost National Poetry Award. Her poem dedicated to Rosa Parks remains on display in the Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Lollie assists teachers in introducing Poetry units to young students. She makes her home on the Sonoran Desert with lizards and a lone coyote.
Poetry is a gift. The best feeling comes from sharing that gift with others.
second place winner
Chelsea Kerwin
Chelsea Kerwin is a poet and writer living in Baltimore, Maryland. Drawn to poetry from an early age after discovering Christina Rossetti by lucky mistake in grade school, Chelsea went on to major in English and Creative Writing at George Washington University and then earned her MFA from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Some of her favorite writers include Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, Anne Carson, Louise Glück, and Jack Gilbert. She is currently working on a poetry chapbook grappling with her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the meaning of life without memories.
I’ve always loved Elizabeth Bishop’s line from The Fish, “It was more like the tipping / of an object toward the light.” I look to poetry for that — to bathe objects or moments in light and reveal something of their truest meaning.
third place winner
Hayden Park
Hayden Park is a high school student based in southern California. She is an aspiring writer, violinist, and pianist. She started learning music at the age of five and began writing about it not long afterward. Writing has always been her go-to form of catharsis, and it goes hand in hand with her music—music makes her feel, and writing gives those feelings a voice.
In every person, there are so many emotions that go unexpressed—writhing, fuming, desperate—but also afraid—to escape. Poetry, to me, is like extending some tiny, glowing wire of Self, hoping someone sees that light and connects to it. It’s an invitation: come with me, this was how it felt, live mine, and remember yours.
POETRY
OUR 2024 Honorable Mentions
They Say She Suffers from Depression
By Amy Gordon
They Say She Suffers from Depression
by Amy Gordon
Mother is a storm-bent tree
on the edge of a bluff, her trunk stunted,
shorn of leaves—she twists and twists
against a background of fluffy clouds.
Fluffy is a childish word.
Mother, says the child, you can have my wings.
I know they are childish, but I am a child,
you can take my wings.
Wings aren’t practical.
The child colors in the herd of clouds.
Violet. Dark blue. A scratch of black.
Mother is a storm-bent tree.
Who painted these clouds?
They are supposed to be white.
The child walks to the river.
Have you heard of the great bird
in the Arabian Tales, the one
who hunts elephants, whose wings
cast a giant shadow over hills and plains?
The child finds the bird’s egg, smooth and round.
Leave the rock outside.
Mother, says the child, do you see
the cardinal’s nest outside my window?
I can’t see,
the sun is too bright.
Take my eyes, says the child.
Take my eyes and see with them.
They are childish eyes, but I am a child.
See the blue sky, the green leaves, the red bird.
That is not art.
The child reaches inside her chest.
Here, Mother, says the child. Take this.
Take my heart.
I couldn’t possibly. My allergies . . .
The child lies in bed and sings.
The child lies in bed and pretends
to play the banjo.
The child lies in bed and pretends
Mother is a storm-bent tree and in the tree
is a nest, and the child pretends
she lives in the nest.
Monarchy
by Avery Kline
Monarchy
by Avery Kline
Robes of silk crafted from aching hands
A glimmering headpiece, each jewel catching the light we never could quite bask in
The ribbons tied around her waist swish with each step she takes, floating like the limbs of
jellyfish, suspended in the depths of the blue below, the tide rushing over your feet.
You’re a lot like the tide, you know?
She is too.
Something so real yet so fantastical at once.
You exist and yet you are so great that one cannot help but question if the brilliance before their
eyes is but a product of the hour of sleep they lack.
You both rush in and out of our lives, so brazen and bubbly, each word you say like a bullet to
the chest, flowers blooming in my ribcage, my bones startled by your praise.
I’ve never felt this way before.
Neither have you, it seems.
Oh, neither has she.
Masked poise, forced mirth. All of it hiding the tears in her beautiful ruined bodice.
You were never quite as great, but to me, you were everything.
Your bruised knuckles trace over her skirt, combing through each of its intricate layers, searching for a sheet that had yet to be ripped.
I tried to tell you. I really did.
You never listened. You dropped the garment and left, never to return again.
I cannot blame you for that. You were hurting.
I was too.
So tell me, why is it that her headpiece had lain broken for so long, her silk dress torn, her
brocade corsets mutilated by the stresses of court, unfixed all the while?
She still stands there now, that smile plastered across her face. You watch her in envy.
I can’t help but wince at the sight.
You never knew your place. She had known hers since birth. So why is it that I feel she still
walks in aimless circles, searching along the coast for those jellyfish ribbons in absolute silence?
You wonder why my own hands are bruised, my smile fallen.
But all that matters now is that her dress is fixed, each hem perfectly sewn.
Celeste
by Lollie Butler
Celeste
by Lollie Butler
Through the window, the sky stares me down.
With a sleeve, I rub my breath away.
You left as though you’d forgotten your coat or mittens.
My child,
you are a native of light, blinding to us.
Each night, I tuck a small transparency
under my pillow
and dream the child you might have been.
It tilts my smiles, turns every goodbye on its end.
How I reckoned with God, the giant beekeeper,
to be his drone, carrying my honey home.
Were you transplanted, like a pink radish
to more fertile loam?
Filled with expectation, I hummed
like the rock-a-bye mother I was to become
and felt a listening inside;
tiny ear cocked against the concertina of my lungs.
My grandmother’s body, barely eighteen,
released its early hold.
Three small graves snuggle in beside hers.
The little christening gown
passed through the family hangs empty again.
Tiny traveler, you shine where the blossom
never becomes fruit. What’s left goes to seed;
white crib in a white room,
doll with stunned eyes leaning against the window.
What is grief but a longing to reclaim;
to hold with fierce resolve all that is dear to us.
At dusk, scanning the sky for new stars,
I give the brightest one your name.
There is me, apart
by Ava Keck
There is me, apart
by Ava Keck
There is my day
With shaking hands and nodding heads and deadlines and objectives
And then there is you
The moon
With your gelato scooped craters
And magnanimous concurrence with us
There is my alarm, blaring obnoxiously
Followed by keyboard clicking and report making and email corresponding
And then there is you
The waves
Inhaling your vanilla satin foam towards your reflection in the sky
Before collapsing upon your sculpted stones
And then heaving upon yourself, wobbling in seeming amusement
“Again!” says your splash, as you, afresh, gleefully jump at the sun
There is my inbox, pinging
of itemized expenses and budgetary conservatism
And then there is you
The wind and the trees
Dancing as one, your rhythm bouncing the spotlight from the olive fronds to the coarse red bark
To the blue bird awakening to the music, to soon sing along
And then there is me
Inside
What are you doing, living thing? Come join in our revelry!
I sigh out my sentience
Primly, and forcefully:
I’m sorry, dear friends, for I have bills to pay.
POETRY
OUR 2023 WINNERS
First Place
This Is Not America
By Raya Yarbrough
This Is Not America
by Raya Yarbrough
This is not America,
this is twisted wood in sand.
This is 10 million years
in this stone, in my hand.
This is the dirt beneath the factory.
Dirt beneath the church.
Dirt which holds, refractory
to governmental girth.
We drive and we stride
and we fall and we ride
without thought,
on the crumbled blood of mountains.
But this is not America,
these are fathoms and tides.
These are homes of loons and otters
only human hands divide.
This is the hiss of reeds
a sea above a sea,
an old spiritual, moaning,
in the language of the Hickory.
From ancient river spines
boils brine from the fault,
and we have forgotten ourselves,
as the children of salt.
But this is not America,
this is 5:09 pm
and the cobweb in the window
has caught fire again
in the lift of summer’s nothings,
spectral breaths which lift the weave
to breathe through phantom tendons
on the edge of this eve.
Now the wind chimes, now a shadow
following the ring,
none of these have ever been at war
with anything.
I call to this land
by the name given to it
by the Bear and the Orca,
by the fox and the crow.
The name we can hold in our hands
in the driftwood
but we can never know.
Second Place
Sahara
By Cassie Lipton
Sahara
by Cassie Lipton
One day, my body
will not remember it’s anger
the way the Sahara
does not remember
it was once ocean.
One day, the seasickness
will become less violent,
the waves less treacherous,
as drop by drop you drain
from the space I’ve left open.
One day, I will step out
and the water will be ankle-deep.
Your memory is sea salt
on my face and in my hair
but drawing is no danger
One day, I will lay on the damp
sand, soft and pliable
and build castles of everything
I have become without you,
when I’ve washed away my anger.
And in a thousand years,
I will lie on the dunes
and feel the dry heat on my back
and it will be
as if you were
nothing.
Third Place
Elemental
By Jenna Martinez
Elemental
by Jenna Martinez
Aire
at eighteen, my mother runs away
to the border to marry my father.
the air that carries her to Laredo
seeps into the seeds of me.
I bloom into a small tornado.
breezes ferry me into soft beds and soft bodies.
in Mexico, a woman holds my palm
eres inquieta, she says.
I turn 33 in Death Valley.
the wind strikes the sand
into wisps the shape of snakes.
Fuego
the heat of Brooklyn
evaporates up the summer concrete
holding the steps of all of us
tumbling through the city.
I have a husband, a girlfriend, and a lover.
I am a giant.
I press my heavy foot onto the street
stepping over the bridges
that touch borough to borough.
unfurled, I expand across the city,
come to its borders and spill.
Agua
on the southside of San Antonio,
the curandera spins a bath for sweetness.
the petals fall onto the shower floor.
I toe the constellations at my feet.
bathed in honey,
I loosen the laces, untie myself
from my life, my marriage,
my pebble of earth.
I slip into dark waters.
Tierra
a small compass emerges in my belly.
I follow the arc of sun.
its origin touches the bedroom windows,
bowing in the living room.
I press blooms in to the clay Midwest earth,
their maroon faces stretch over the lawn
vining toward sun.
OUR 2022 WINNERS
First Place
Raining Red
By Mridvi Khetan
Raining Red
by Mridvi Khetan
I grew up believing that the rain is red.
Red like the scars mapped across my body,
gifted by a man who colour red embodied
Hot stew for all meals resembled the red sandstone,
which brother went to mine from blood-marked zones
Every day we took a bath in red water,
sourced from a brick well
Everywhere we were blocked by red tape,
sourced from bureaucratic cells
You see, red is omnipresent
It’s the colour of resistance but also the colour of our blood
Does this mean we’re born to resist?
I resisted red
but how can you, if all you see are corpses – dead.
A memory surfaces in my head,
how my sister was shamed monthly for her red
I can smell it too, you know
The red, a scent of my morning breath
Remnants of the wars fought by words I can only dare to speak in stealth
If red is the paint I’ve been coloured in, body and bone
It’s only logical to see my surroundings in the same tone
So when it rained the other day
I said,
“Ma, see it’s raining red today!”
Second Place
In The Tide
By Emily BALCHUNAS
In The Tide
by Emily Balchunas
He dragged himself out of bed
as the sun began to rise.
The seagulls were his alarm,
he rubbed the dreams from his eyes.
This lighthouse has seen some storms,
she sways in the night.
The wind whistles through her creaks,
but never seems to get inside.
Coffee soaked the air,
the windows let in the sunshine.
The ocean brings a breeze that shifts the house
from time to time.
The lighthouse was clean and knew his routine,
this presence of a man.
Her eggshell walls shined a bit brighter,
her lamp had a certain glisten.
She even seemed to stand a bit taller
as he occupied her land,
and with every rope he knotted
the wind would lift his hand.
The keeper of this structure was patient,
and he cared.
In the morning he’d sing to her
and at night he’d climb her stairs.
Clicking on her burning light
like brushing back her hair.
With a hot cup of tea
she thought they both would share.
Fall came and went,
every winter, time would freeze.
Every night he’d shine her light
for any ships lost at sea.
As the days would pass them by,
their nights together began to cease.
No matter how tall she stood,
she couldn’t bring him peace.
One day, the morning breeze came in
And the sun began to rise.
There were no coffee smells,
or sleepy groggy eyes.
Gone without a trace,
like he was taken in the night.
The lighthouse stood empty and still,
with his memory held inside.
Dare I to say to this very day
as the sun is sure to rise,
her eggshell halls and walls will wait
to dance with him again in the tide.
Third Place
Do You Remember?
By Robert Watt
Do You Remember?
by Robert Watt
Do you remember the Christmas ball?
Your hair worn up above its wispy strands
And swinging jewels that kissed the neck
Cool and scented with the musk of foreign lands
You rose from a dress the colour of your lips
Plunged a neckline that drew the hungry eye
Onto the eggshell curves and the teasing split
long though never quite revealed the thigh
Do you remember Trafalgar square?
Rushing to the front, running with the madding crowd,
High on passions that quickly gave to laughs or tears,
A rebel stance and voice exuberant and loud
You were strong and lithe, danced into the night,
Filled with beans for a life come recently mature.
We lit candles at both ends and did it all,
Having time and energy to spare for more.
Do you remember Fridays after work
and weekend afternoons lost in sin?
We’d toss our clothes, fall carefree in a fumbling yearn,
Hands buried in hair and greedy for a touch of skin.
We did it all together, hardly left a day apart,
With nothing but ourselves for warmth but happily,
Scraping pennies for bills and budget meals,
Slowly making house then family.
Do you remember how we got so old?
Our faces fell and hair tuned thin and grey.
Focus shifted nearer, the youthful fires cooled,
While the world unnoticed moved away.
We slowed, quietened by relentless years,
Congealed into the people we portrayed;
Staid companions, content with holding hands
Creaking and groaning into life’s denoting fade.