The Kirkland Reporter recently launched its first-ever 2011 Poetry Contest with the theme “autumn.” Thank you to the poets who together submitted 40 poems.
The panelist of judges for the contest included Kirkland Reporter Editor Carrie Wood, Bothell/Kenmore Reporter Editor Andy Nystrom and Christopher Jarmick, a writer who organizes and hosts two regularly scheduled monthly poetry readings in Kirkland and Seattle. Jarmick is also a former executive vice president of the Washington Poets Association.
Congratulations to the following winners: First place goes to Kirkland resident Al Drinkwine for his poem, “Autumn Miracle”; second place goes to Chi Chi Stewart, of Kirkland, for her poem “After All, Autumn”; and third place goes to Jeanette Curlew, of Kirkland, for “God is Like Dave Fielding.”
Winners will read their poems during the Northwest BookFest Open Mic event from 4-6 p.m. Oct. 1 at the Peter Kirk Senior Center in Kirkland.
Here are the winning selections:
First place: ‘Autumn Miracle”
A cinnamon stick swirls
a morning cup of warm homemade apple cider,
as the front porch rocking chair groans
beneath the old man’s weight
Peering at the mound of drying leaves,
the man appears to be waiting
for an autumn miracle
to blow the leaves
to his neighbor’s yard
A cinnamon stick swirls
an evening cup of warm homemade apple cider,
as the front porch rocking chair groans
beneath the old man’s weight
The setting sun
whispers to the gentle tired man
“perhaps the wind
will blow tomorrow” ~
Second place: ‘After All, Autumn’
1.
Scarlet sockeye climb the creeks
Two weeks early. In the forest, fronds lift up.
Chanterelles nudge through matted ground
Exposing frilly orange hats.
The scents of loamy soil, rotting logs,
Every kind of green wakens again.
2.
Parched roots of grand cedar and hemlock
Call to the rain through limbs that toss like
Prayer flags in the cooling winds :
“Come.
We have waited so long.”
The rain drips down over shingled branches
Soaking earth in answer:
“I am here.”
3.
In town, where the woman lives,
Rain and wind blow across the west deck.
Roses there dip and sway on bushes grown rugged
Through this dry, awful summer.
A cloth spinner turns,
Manic colors pinwheeling with the gusts.
The round glass table gathers reflection,
Its faded umbrella closed for keeping.
Toys strewn about dribble
Playful memories onto yellow leaves.
4.
Inside, the woman pours hot tea and honey
Into a waiting cup
And at last sits down
And sips it.
Third place: ‘God is Like Dave Fielding’
God is like Dave Fielding
who never picks up his phone.
Dave has two land lines and two cell phones
but he rarely answers.
Sometimes a woman answers but she doesn’t know
where Dave is or what he is doing. Once
in awhile I come across a friend
who says, call Dave now, he’s home,
I just spoke to him.
What number did you use, I shout out
as I fumble for my phone.
But Dave rarely picks up. Sometimes
his answering service activates after 20 rings
and I leave a breathy short message before I am cut off.
Last week I finally reached him.
He was on a hilltop in Ellensburg.
He said he didn’t want to talk business
and held the phone aloft
so I could hear the wind whistling
down the foothills of the Cascades.
Someday we’ll stand on this very hillside and
celebrate he said. Celebrate what?
Well, he replies, right now the sun is going down, I can see
the shadow inch across the valley.
It’s the first day of autumn and I’m standing on a dirt road
with a few friends. Someday I will bring you here.
The phone crackles and he is gone.
I call back and finally give up
after the series of rings
begin to sound like a heartbeat.
