As I read this year’s contest entries, I accumulated a deep appreciation for the humans who invested the thought and energy to create them and who took the time to submit them to our contest. Thank you, fellow poets. We received 137 entries and co-editor Sharon and I have read then all. Our task was tough as there were many seriously contending poems.

I found that I was in conversation with each poem. My wife thought I was mumbling to myself as perhaps a first sign of losing me. In a sense, my interaction with a contest entry was not a true conversation where there is a bouncing back and forth of words. Rather, it was my attempt to draw-out the poet’s intention, imagination, ‘message,’ or to determine the tone, to listen to the music, to enjoy touching the words. My conversation was with the poem and not the poet, however. In doing this, I tried to put my personal preferences aside and receive the poem ‘as is.’

General discussion centered on the poem’s internal logic, its form, its descriptive or argumentative progression. I am always looking for figures of speech as an indication of our art. Prosy poems have to prove to me that they are poems. I don’t necessarily ‘trust’ the persona in the sense that I usually trust the imagination: there is no falsehood in the imagination. A poem can be about almost anything, but a successful poem must be ‘compelling’ regardless of subject matter.

My questions are rhetorical of course; the computer screen or Siri/AI doesn’t answer. I am looking for answers right there in the poem: What, dear poem, are you trying to tell me? Where’s the pleasure in your idea, plot, or description? Are you begging for sympathy? Show me, I plead, why I should be compassionate about your personal angst, dilemmas, dreams, angers, hopes and fears.

Sometimes I got picky. Could you use a ‘better’ (more precise, more provocative, more descriptive) word? Are you trying to get me to Google multiple jargon, foreign, technical, or code words? I don’t mind hard work, clever puzzles, riddles or profound aphorisms, but don’t leave me too far behind. How can this be your best work when clearly it has not been proofread? Where are your persuasive powers, your fascinating story or discovered insight?

And though I had nearly 400 conversations, I was not speed-dating. The longer conversations, the more re-reads denoted the poems which demanded attention: ones that left me saying we’ll meet again at some coffee shop, bar, or park bench.

Sharon and I had conversations about these poems and agree that “Nine Feet Apart” by David Hughes should be awarded our first prize. It spoke to us with clarity and power, and we left on good terms. Our second prize is for “Stone Circle,” by Moray McGowan which also had many things to say.

Both of these poems, and perhaps other contest entries, will be posted in the Fall Issue.

—Fred Wilbur