Contest Judge, Chip Dameron, has selected The Winner, Runner up, and two Honorable Mentions from over 640 poems entered in the 2020 Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize. All four poets will receive prize money and publication in The Ocotillo Review Volume 5.1 releasing on February 8, 2021.
Top Honors go to Partridge Boswell of Woodstock, Vermont for his poem “Stick Up”. Boswell receives $1000 for first prize. Dameron had this to say about the poem:
“StickSUp” provides a wonderfully illuminating take on the current pandemic quandary, and so much more. To mask or not: the speaker examines these masks that we wear. It opens with the speaker, a masked bank customer, ruminating on the imminent activity: an imagined stick up or an ordinary withdrawal? Then on to other identity considerations: the dangers of a youthful Black American jogger or a young Afghani woman seeking an education, and the hopelessness of a bottom-caste person in India. And what of a face-shaped, heart-shaped poplar leaf? The speaker asserts that “I’ll stay rooted / to the spot until leaves are leaves and wind is wind,” as the speaker moves toward the end and the birds in the poplars “sing a verse of pity and regret, then beat their wings and vanish from sight.”
Second Place goes to Faith Shearin of Amherst, Massachusetts for her poem, “Distance”. Shearin Receives $100. Dameron writes,
“In ‘Distance’, the poet asks us to consider a range of physical dimensions that deepen into our emotional and psychic fields. The speaker asks us “to compare a nautical / mile to the suggested depth of a grave during / an outbreak of plague in London, 1665.” Consider, the speaker asks, “the distance between words and their meaning.” These measurements aren’t trivial, and perhaps not certain. But they are certainly worth our calibrating.”
Chip Dameron was not required to choose honorable Mentions but due to the volume and phenomenal quality of the entries we at KGP are so happy he did. His choices were Anna Leahy of Orange, California for “Hindsight” and Joseph Borden of Bon Aqua, Tennessee for “Down In the Valley”. Both will receive $60 and publication. Dameron had the following words for these poems:
“Hindsight” explores the meaning of time. The speaker questions, is a shooting star “the soot from God’s fingers when he put our eyes in ages ago”? What about “a CT scan a few minutes ago”—does it measure what has already happened in the body?” So much of what we see is surely looking back. The stars lighting our night glowed eons ago. The speaker wonders, “These words I’ve written, who were they then, when sound formed meaning?”
“Down in the Valley” is a rollicking journey, punctuated with unexpected metaphors and lively images. As the speaker intones, “Take me to New Orleans where I can waste the sticky air / and tame the bayou with pen and dictionary.” Later, “Let us age until we crow and the mountain is all gums, / until the street rumbles and the floodwaters concede.” As readers, we hang on for the ride, which is well worth our attention.
The Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize contest is run in a double-blind selection process. Each poem is analyzed and scored by at least three qualified editorial assistants who have post graduate degrees and/or publication in the genre. The poems are scored on a 100 point scale in consideration of craft, structure, impact, and aesthetics. Scores are totaled and averaged. The highest scoring 20 to 25 poems are forwarded to the judge in random order also in a double-blind process. The decision of the judge is final. Once chosen we reconnect the poem with the poet and celebrate!
In addition to the winners above, these 20 additional finalists deserve recognition. Out of over 640 poems submitted these poets produced the poems sent to the final judge:
Finalists include (in order of submission by date):
Linda Sienkiewicz – Solo Suite
Tamara Moan – Voyage Of Rediscovery
Michele Randall – RC Colas In Glass Bottles
Jane Craven – Early Love As Archaic Language
Mariano Zaro – Gender Disagreement
Art Elser – Gaia’s Patience Wears Thin
Joshua Kulseth – Glass
Joshua Martin – First Grill
Annie Christain – Ouroboros: The Hang In There Mondays
Christopher Shipman – If the Sky Is Never Finished
Craig Harris – I Once Cupped a Flower In My Hand
Leon O’Chruadhlaoich – Impending Retirement
Sean Winn – Homecoming
Dorritt Carroll – Snake
Anne Bower – In Other Plague-Filled Times
Patricia Davis-Muffett – Wild Child
Matthew J. Spireng – Red Button
Patricia Adelman – Forevermore
Anne Crowell – Spring
Arien Reed – A Case of Mistaken Identity
Vivian Shipley – Adrift
The Staff and board of Directors at Kallisto Gaia Press wish to thank all poets and participants in this contest for continuing to support literary excellence in their communities and around the world