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Poetry Contest Winners

Youth Winners Adult Winners in our Annual Poetry Contest

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Jennifer Galler

Happy National Poetry Month!

In the past, the Source Poetry Contest has taken place in the fall, but with Poetry Month being April, this year we upped our game and moved it to the month when many others are celebrating the beauty of the written word.

We've teamed up with the Deschutes Public Library, Central Oregon Community College's Barber Library and the Masters of Fine Arts low-residency program at Oregon State University-Cascades to host a series of poetry-related events this month.

Mark your calendars!

Wed., April 24 at 6pm at Ray Hall, Rooms 011+013, at OSU-Cascades for a reading with our winners, and other professional poets!

Youth Winners

"The Anticipation of a Letter"

By Zinna Grae

I wrote you a letter!
I imagine when you get it you will smile
Or you will cry.
I imagine when you get it you will shout
"She wrote me!"
And go find your father to show him,
And he'll smile too
I imagine when you get it you will give it a great big kiss And it will leave a pink chapstick stain
Right next to your name.
I imagine when you get it you will run around in circles And jump up and down,
Or you will fall on the floor giggling and squealing Because you know the letter means
"I Love you"
I wrote you a letter!
I imagine when you open it
You will not cut your finger on the sharp edge of the seal
You will open it gracefully,
Careful not to crease or tear the delicate paper.
I imagine when you open it you will admire every detail in my loopy hand writing. I imaging when you read it you will uncontrollably laugh and smile
Because you remember me just as funny and sweet as it displays.
How ironic it is to remember someone you havent seen in months
And have them be the same no matter how long that time was.
I imagine when you read it you will read it slow
And won't be able to wait to finish because the urge to write back is so strong.
But, silly me! You may just leave it in the envelope.

The reader writes: We have all felt it: the anticipation of opening a letter, perhaps from somebody special. But what makes this poem so interesting and enjoyable to read is the way in which the poet spins this familiar experience anew with unexpected descriptions like "And it will leave a pink chapstick stain," and "loopy hand writing."

"The Cane"

By Evelyn Northrup

The cane is the scariest thing in the Swisher's family

But the parents never knew

Because only baby Tommy was cane level at peer view

So, whenever grandma woke up with a slunch

You would have to run or you would be her lunch

She would hit anything that was in her view

Like babies, dogs and chipmunks too

The reader writes: I can only hope that this is fiction! "Grandma" in this poem is even more terrifying than the cane. What I like most is the way in which grandma wakes— with a "slunch"— a grisly and memorable portmanteau of slouch and hunch.

Honorable Mention: Adult Poetry

"Youth"

By Nicholas Bechard

Youth, beautifully gone

Like blue skies or rose petals from the floor

There are words you used to speak

But you can't remember how

There was a way you used to run

With weightless bones and grass-stained knees

Popsicle-kissed lips, the summer at your back

You didn't know it yet

But that was the slowest that time would ever be

A time before you knew time by its name

Before your heart knew how to break

And your body learned how to curl

Before divorce, before abuse, before solitude

Before depression would be brushed off by everyone you ever knew

You were once living without trying

Breathing without a reminder

You can learn a lot in time

But even more from youth

The reader writes: The poet captures the essence of youth in images like "grass-stained knees," and "popsicle-kissed lips," but there is also a palpable sadness here, as if the poet is anticipating a far-off reality where these things will be a memory.

Adult Winners

#1

the painter of kharkhiv By Broderick Eaton

the artist watches missiles pour fire
sending red running across the canvas
into disbelieving eyes lament cut short
by the voice of history turned muse stop

lift the brush record the scene
across the street where bright sun splashes
bullet point concrete of an office building
a man trades briefcase for armor his tie
will soon be a tourniquet for a mother hurrying
her young son along the sidewalk quickly my love
before the storm papers fly on the wind like doves
from his case and the man now grips the heel of a pistol

the mother turns from the doves shepherding faster here
take my hand dress blooming in the wind their fingers
entwined as she dances to distract look over there my son
see the light fall from the cloud how one shadow
moves silently over another

cyan paintbrush captures a cerulean sky stretched tense
with thunder ochre and canary the mighty sunflowers
twisting their radar heads quickly now follow the sun
across the clearing he hears tanks drumming in the bones
chases the path of fleeing starlings marks in onyx
where they strike the trees seeking escape go with the birds

paint dark and pointed the seeds in her hand the ones
she will give the soldiers when they stop her
we speak the same as the barrel takes aim
hold these seeds in your pocket
so something good can come from you

history whispers in artist's ear pause the brush
begin again make them remember

The reader writes: The ambiguity of art and reality from the first line draws the reader into this poem about the human toll of war. I was struck by how the poet captures the intersections of art and violence without making either into cliche. Some of my favorite images included "he hears tanks drumming in the bones," and "the mother turns from the doves shepherding faster." These images stopped me in my tracks.

#2

Rose Mashers
By Carol Barrett

One of our favorite things to do was mash
the petals that fell from Grandma's prodigious roses,
making perfume, doll soup, whatever imagination
cooked up. My sister Kathy and I took turns
with a small thick jar later identified as a nut grinder,
a triple chopping blade inside that sprung back
with a delicious squeak, and a shallow wooden bowl
and rolled blade, perhaps intended for garlic cloves,
for orange peels. We spent fragrant hours collecting
petals, whole blooms if Grandma had pruned recently –
she often had. Then stationed ourselves on the porch
in sunlight. A velvet facial would initiate the mash –
luscious red and pale pink, apricot syrup and cream,
old-fashioned yellow. I was shocked to discover
other people did not mash roses, did not even know
what a rose masher was. Thus our summer education
unfolded: what was fallen worthy of art and invention,
the peach smell of old roses trailing us into sleep.

The reader writes: I am definitely the intended audience for this poem. I love when a poem teaches me something (rose smashing!), and this poem does so beautifully with images like "doll soup," and "a velvet facial would initiate the mash." This poem was fragrant.

#3

Sharpening the Point By Carol Barrett

The dark gray spot remains tattooed above my left brow
Whenever I see a new doctor, they squint at the mark, squeeze it
a bit between gloved fingers. Moles are brown. My stigmata

is gray, an aberration, perhaps some new skin cancer
to photograph for JAMA. I reveal the source. I got poked
in the forehead with a flying pencil. It came at me like a dart,

poised to take out an eye. I ducked in the nick of time.
How old were you they ask when I tell the story, a kid furious
I beat him at marbles. Nine. Two hands, minus a thumb.

I love to sharpen pencils, twirling the invincible memory
of injury, sawdust and lead powder giving way to a number two
weapon. A number three retains its steely head longer, but

doesn't have the depth of tone, the mask of softness.
Vengeance is mine. I have never plunged one into a competitor's
ego. I wield words instead. Still an ace shooter. Try me. I dare you.

The reader writes: I love when poems move back and for between worlds, and this one does so dexterously. This is a difficult task, though, but this poem makes it look easy. Here, we begin in the exam room, are transported back in time to the scene of the poke, and are then lost in memory again. I think this poem's charm is in its relatability while staying interesting and a bit grotesque.

#4

"Smitten" By Sandy Thompson

with first snowflake

remaining besotted
when silent lace-fall turns
to a weighted-cold ocean
I wade with a shovel

with each sunbeam

rays melt snow
into something dense
and
dangerous, yet

with sun, snow shimmers

like champagne
beside the flickers of a warm hearth,
sleepy sorcery,
and then in summer,

with a wildflower meadow

on bright, breezed slope—
I'm smitten
with slopes, though downhill daunts,
my pulse stirs

with all the winding ways up

#5

"Ellie Hangs the Mouflon Head" By Broderick Eaton

"They're all gone," she says from the ladder, "didn't understand about the coyotes."
The ram stares down from above the doorway, his beard spilling dark against the wall.

The hard curves of his horns are segmented shells that didn't know what to do with teeth.
She's making the best of what was lost.

Her disappointment like my skipped last sip because of stray grounds at the bottom
of the cup, but sometimes it all starts at the top and drips down.

What if instead of growing to reach the sky we found out the mountains, the trees, the clouds,
everything below our feet is shrinking away from us?

I used to love disposable things until I learned, too late to get it back,
what I meant to keep and away doesn't mean away.

The echo he left can be heard by my bones but they don't know how to beat the same rhythm.
They only recognize the gift when it returns in the quiet to rattle the heart.

He used to carry me on his shoulders and I held his ears to balance. I like how small I feel
next to the weight of a boulder tree that knew my ancestors' ancestors.

At Christmas, deep woods thicken with snow. Saw a straight cut, leave a stum
less than twelve inches. One for each month, no more. One of these will be the last.

Ring in the new year as if anything changes as you watch it. Tossed against the winter dune
the raised circles of the fattest driftwood trunk are a gray braille message we are too blind to see.

Liquefaction softens disturbance. As soon as a print lands on sand, hidden water seeps
it away. If I keep running, there will be a trail of at least one.

Volcán Arenal, built of black sand, was a constantly weeping berry until the earth shook
the magma away. Footprint of violence sits silent as the steaming rainforest crawls to its throat.

Fluid dynamics: a coffee berry plump red among velvet green holds two sleeping beans
that lie back to back like hands in prayer, hard and waiting.

Chocolate, the one I ate, is from the same language as coyote, the one that ate my cat.
The stairs are right there if I can learn to climb those words.

"This head," she says, coming back down, "is attached by only one nail."
His dead gaze makes me feel the enormity of now.