Winner:
Leia Penina Wilson-- "And we lost the city we woke up in"
(Leia Penina Wilson’s “and we lost the city we woke up in” is the most interesting break-up poem I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Part fugue, part country song, part high lyric yearning --- the poem creates a world of broken images in a slow, calm, and utterly controlled measure. There are so many lines I admire here & i crawled inside you and took off all my clothes and still couldn’t exorcise your heart is a line I wish to steal as well as i built a boat with all the towels in your closet &. The ampersand becomes a character of its own moving across the poem to mark different beginnings, endings, and middles. I’ve called this a break-up poem but it could just as easily be a poem of building up a self, constructing an identity through loss and love; the way we all must do. ~Susan Rich)
Honorable Mentions:
Dave Jarecki-- "Nona Says As I’m Leaving for College"
(The juxtaposition of ordinary phrasing made extraordinary hooks me with each reading of “Nona Says As I’m Leaving for College”: Stay off the weed, the dope. Don’t think/ is a line that delights me each time I read it. ~Susan Rich)
Greg Nicholl-- "Later I Dreamt the Black Rabbit"
(“Later I Dreamt the Black Rabbit” mixes the real with the surreal creating a world where to purchase a train ticket to a strange town / because you like the sound of its name, makes perfect sense. This is a poem I want to live inside of. ~Susan Rich) Greg Nicholl-- "Later I Dreamt the Black Rabbit"
Matthew Guenette-- "A Failure of Spring Rain"
(“A Failure of Spring Rain” is a poem drenched in summer love and a nostalgia told wild and fresh: bass banged so low it migrained our knees, but wasn’t it good, that gasoline smell? ~Susan Rich)
Jessica Walsh-- "The Balloon Artist Falls in Love"
(In “The Balloon Artist Falls in Love” I admire the poet’s cinematic images of “giraffes” and “beach skeletons,” “burning dollars” and “the moon’s terrible failure” which come together to create a trancelike state in this reader’s mind. ~Susan Rich)
Finalists (in alphabetical order):
Judith Barrington-- "Not a Credo"
Dave Byrd-- "Spring Cleaning"
Katie Eberhart-- "Efficiency Is A Force of Nature As Well As Economics"
Katharine Ogle-- "Riddle For Hunger"
Anna Scotti-- "Philadelphia"
Anna Scotti-- "Save Me a Slice of Raisin Toast…"
Claire Skinner-- "What’s New"
Maya Jewell Zeller-- "The Big Quiet"
Thank you to Susan Rich for judging our contest and to our poetry editor, Ronda Broatch. We received a large number of incredible poems this year. Thank you to all of the poets who entered--we enjoyed reading your work!
Look for all of these poems in Crab Creek Review 2013 v.1.
