Thank you to all of the poets who entered Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest and special thanks to our wonderful judge, Dorianne Laux and to our poetry editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers.
Winner:
"Widowing" by Laura E. Davis. Dorianne Laux writes, "This poem reminds me of a Ruth Stone poem, both in its subject, and in the simple, precise details that reveal worlds.The irony of "That happy nighttime" the contortion of sadness in "her body a backward question mark", the anti-romantic "stump of a man". I admire the way the poem leaps into a vision of the difficulties of not only writing of grief, but into what could be a definition of grief itself: "curled strings" "bitter taste of an empty hearth", "the foggy hunger of widowing". This poem finishes with a sound image, one that can almost be heard, the subtle, and exquisitely lonely sound of a whiskey glass being lifted and then set back down. Lovely poem."
Honorable Mentions:
"The Contours of the Lake Lost to Cloud" by Jill Osier "is made from careful listening, and such a wonderful unexpected ending." ~Dorianne Laux
"Boundaries" by Claire Zoghb "is a poem that allows the reader access to a large political argument through a domestic and quite personal exchange." ~Dorianne Laux
"Seeing You" by Maya Jewell Zeller "is a visual treat. I loved those 'vertebrae a mouth stacked on a mouth'." ~Dorianne Laux
Finalists:
"Gretel Remembers" by Brent Calderwood
"Fairy Tale" by Rebecca Foust
"Someday My Stomach Will Be a Museum" by Jill Osier
"Love: Sun::" by Ben Purkert
"Relative Identity" by Cindy Steward Rinier
"Elegy/Elk River" by Michael Schmeltzer
"Tautology" by Michael Schmeltzer
"Departure" by John Willson
"Divorce on Mars" by Francine Witte
Congratulations to Laura E. Davis and to all of the Honorable Mentions and Finalists! Look for all of these poems in Crab Creek Review 2012 v. I.
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