Poem of the Year:
May 2016-Apr 2017

Judged by Kristy Bowen

First Place

Still Life with Oranges (II)

by Lisa Megraw
Wild Poetry Forum
November 2016

- After Matisse

i. natural light

When your labour of wet brushes
places an oxblood curtain
next to an olive pitcher

long after ghosts have abandoned
the grey fog of your morning,
your chest feels hollow enough

to wake the starlings in your wrists
and bow your head to work
over a wall fringed with afternoon’s ochre,

where light reflects off bone china
and the shadows that have gathered
their own field of blue irises

cradle the light of oranges.

ii. inverted image

When the cracking of paint
moves a turquoise window
further from a mauve pitcher

days before summer’s cerise blossoms
open with the certainty of new birth,
your head feels full enough

to stare into the night’s cerulean,
watch midnight collect
in curved china

and twilight scatter small
orange flowers
that collapse beneath

the insurmountable distance of blue.



Second Place

A Brief History of Blood

by Teresa White
Wild Poetry Forum
October 2016

Blood on the marriage sheets
for the village to examine.

Blood seeping into the white pad
the beef lies in.

Blood in the birth chamber,
the stainless steel stirrups.

The blood of our fathers
christening a bayonet.

Blood in running water
a nick at a time.

Blood spun in a centrifuge,
blue blood in the vein.

Blood red roses in a long box,
a ring, a kiss, a wedding dress.



Third Place

Atlantic Giant

by Jim Fowler
Babilu
September 2016

You sit stolid on the skid,
Atlantic Giant, the Buddha
of pumpkins. Your lifeline twists
wrist-thick through the grate

to the mountain of compost
and brown earth. The patch
of Sugars nearby, peanut sized,
look up at you in awe.

Your shadow blankets all
as the sunset and your final
day draws near. We’ll cut
the cord and carry you

to your final match,
a weigh-in of sumo gourds,
soon a half ton of pies.