ADULT WINNERS
First Place
Apex
Science class was only good for proving the same hypotheses. We learned about X and Y chromosomes, the Earth in relation to the solar system. How girls were girls and boys were boys and all the planets revolved around the same sun.
We sliced open slimy dead animals, marveled at their insides like grotesque gag gifts. I thought I’d grow up to be an open casket. Each form water takes – ocean, pond, brook, stream, lake – is also a body. Why are there so many different names for the same thing?
I thought I’d grow up to be a life boat before I realized I was an open sea. Or was I both the boat attempting rescue and the sea swallowing me whole?
Yesterday I witnessed a green mantis praying, perched on a leaf’s margin, aimed at the apex, shadows of plant veins painted on its face like a veil. I read somewhere that the French once thought the praying mantis would point a lost child home.
Author: Melissa Mella
The judge writes: “This poem does some fun things about weaving memory and modern contemplations of society, and I especially loved the final image of the mantis as a French mythos for a guiding star.”
Second Place
Unenforceable
In the carpark of the McPhillips Beach State Park
a ranger opens up a black hole
and approaches the galaxy of indulgence.
Despite all the warnings signs in the park,
the beach, in town,
fireworks
are still bought and blown up
to rattle the air in celebration of a war
won hundreds of years ago,
most facts forgotten by those who cheer,
beers in hands, no thought to what comes
down
to worsen our wildfire washed air.
“We tried enforcing but they fired
them at us. Even at the Sheriff.
So what can you do?” Shrugs and
begins snapping at the spew of trash,
hoping his bag’s gravity is enough.
Author: Matthew Friday
The judge writes: “This poem captures– through lyric– a sentiment and experience I think we have in common, that is, the resentment of fireworks, or maybe even worse, the resignation that comes from a lack of ability to do anything about it.”
Third Place
Change of View
This is the way it is / A time to question beliefs
so we say / Do we sit in the middle
accept things the way they are / or do we roam the edges
We have our ideas / Let the old beliefs unravel
the earth as we know it / This movement we feel,
is at the center, / a revolution,
all bodies must circle / around this ancient ball of light
around this divine creation /Observe the laws of nature.
Not to be questioned / A force among masses,
know / the gravity.
of our proclamation. / Pulling us along.
Author: Eirinn Ames
The judge writes: “This poem was by far one of the most interesting submissions with its use of form. The weaving of three poems into a single text is a complicated process, and though the imagery of this set of three is quite simple, the construction is unique.”
Fourth Place
Letting Courage Build, invoking Rosa P.
(To be read first down and then up)
How else does change begin?
You are forced to stand up.
What will they say?
But you want the future to look different.
You know how this will feel
Very hard.
You look straight ahead
When someone speaks up,
You know people don’t like it
Is this what it takes?
You see how they look at you.
You’ve made up your mind.
You can’t do it anymore.
You sit down.
Author: Eirinn Ames
The judge writes: “I like the alternating questions and statements in this poem, and that the lines coming after the questions are not so much answers to those questions but new questions themselves. The poet’s use of punctuation for line endings could be hum-drum or obvious, but the different lengths of the lines and the overall attention to justice in the poem resists any easy connection to be made.”
YOUTH WINNER
Looking in the mirror I see the man I once was.
Proud eyes and a yellowed smile
Whitty and full of bad jokes
Constantly at distress but instead decided he’d glow
When I see him I almost cry
When I see him I ask how he died
He changed is all
He decided that he was exhausted and wanted to fall
I look in the mirror and see his reflection.
Somber eyes and a whitened scowl
Everything’s changed
In just a little while
Author: Luke Johnston
The judges write: “I can see clearly what the poet is intending to do in this piece. It’s a challenging thing to create enough distance between the self and the subject of the poem, and the writer is able to do this and with some very memorable images and descriptions.”
This article appears in Source Weekly April 24, 2025.
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