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Winning Poems for January 2009
Judge Elena Karina Byrne

First Place
New Neighbors
by Eric Rhohenstein
criticalpoet.org

"New Neighbors" ignites a fresh, sensory motion forward. At "the edge of vision" the poem revitalizes literal vision alongside the figurative vision of the mind's eye, "how it goes." Language in motion becomes a key process of seeing through an ever-changing domino-effect of metaphor: yellow jackets ascend, a grandson somersaults--crescendo, autumn wind, gavel falling and so on, until the poem reaches the marvelously mundane-sublime place where "dogs sing the pressure of dawn." --Elena Karina Byrne

Second Place
First Frost
by Christopher T. George
FreeWrights Peer Review

"First Frost" is a Buddhist-like, automatopoetic polaroid view of nature, targeting our vulnerability of perennial-impermanence where a magnolia leaf "twitches like the index finger of a dying man." The use of assonance and subtle end rhyme keep the poem beautifully close-fisted, bud-like, ready to be devoured. --Elena Karina Byrne

Third Place
Dinner With the Ghost of Rilke
by Laurie Byro
Desert Moon Review

"Come here" the beginning of "Dinner With the Ghost of Rilke" commands. Because of the strength of diction, we follow this instruction and immediately become participatory, complicit observers. Rilke's "necessary irrepressible... definitive utterance" colors the voice that is swallowed, a presence, nevertheless, heavy as two pockets full of sugar. --Elena Karina Byrne

Honorable Mention
Taste Buds of Children and Mock Adults
by Thane Zander
Blueline

Honorable Mention
Talking Terror
by Sachi Nag
The Writer's Block

Winning Poems

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