Erik Wilbur has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest As she prepares a mirepoix for the soup—her spine curled slightly over the blade, over a chipped laminate countertop—I consider that a woman can only live for so long like a stilt-house pillar in a flood. Fuck the floods of her life: . . . The flood of the drunk asleep in her bed . . . The flood of her daughter pawning heirlooms for drugs . . . Silently, I curse the ones I know of until the soup simmers. Then we … Continue reading Visiting My Mother After Her Layoff by Erik Wilbur→
Derek Kannemeyer has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest My father planted this fig tree. 25 years ago, the last time my folks visited. The flight back got too much for them-—missed connections, no sleep, lost luggage. And I put in a sapling plum, with dad’s help, but that one’s died since. I thought the fig was dying too, but on the phone, my dad just laughed. The day that fig tree dies is the day that I die. We scattered the ash of him five years ago, but his fig tree … Continue reading Ray’s Fig Trees by Derek Kannemeyer→
Wendy Jean MacLean is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest Fenced in by the property owner the beehive hut of an Irish monk still stands as it has for fourteen centuries. Three euros will get you in through the gate with the added bonus a pen of baby lambs you can fondle for photos. (Behold! The lamb of God!) Inside the hut the owner has stored his gas tank and his electric sander. (Behold! Sins worn down on demand!) The sharp cliffs and fierce waves have not changed over the centuries. … Continue reading Beehive Hut Near Dingle by Wendy Jean MacLean→
Charlotte Rea is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest So proud you must be, atop the fence rail, its flat black the perfect matte for your copper. Your telltale yellow tail-tip aglow under the vines,I’ve come to clip gloveless, blind to your sinuous stretch just a strike from my fingertips. Who is frightened more by our fateful brush with peril? You given no chance to respond as the shovel severs your tender neck–death quick as your tiny hourglasses bleed out time. Your climb is all hope you remember, synched dance of scale … Continue reading Elegy for a Young Copperhead by Charlotte Rea→
Susan Muse is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2020 Poetry Contest Peas are on. The kitchen smells of fatback and cornbread rising in a rush of heat from the stove, unfurling around me like those green stalks in the south field bent over with a want for picking. Earlier I sat in the swing on the shaded porch popping a mess of purple hull peas into a colander, abandoning the shells haphazardly in a ripped-open bag spread brown on my lap. Each one, its freedom echoing against the metal sides of the blue speckled … Continue reading Renegade by Susan Muse→
Gary Beaumier is the 1st place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2019 Poetry Contest. Night Train to Paris Our aged bodies surrender to the sway and lurch of the train as we have passed through the long tunnel beneath the sea old is a foreign country we ride to when we get there we will rise to higher places sit with gargoyles balance on high slate roofs as light slips through us we sleep on park benches dry leaves chasing around us like wicked urchins I will fish the river in a floppy hat mouthing a … Continue reading Winners of 2019 Poetry Contest→
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