Beth Copeland has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2022 Poetry Contest Raking Leaves Dry oak leaves are riddled with BB-sized shot-holes. Is it an encoded warning from the universe, a map of stars, a chart of scorched sun spots? They remind me of paper rolls used on player pianos or of old hole-punched cards we once fed into huge computers. Are these holes a score of whole notes played as November wind whistles through trees? I think about the holes as I rake leaves away from the walls of the house before they rot … Continue reading Raking Leaves by Beth Copeland→
Gary Beaumier has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2022 Poetry Contest Rain in Dublin I want to know what happened to the 90 year old man who raced up the steps of the Empire State Building several years ago Has he slipped away in the night in some unremarkable way while I turned in my sleep and WH Auden when his body quit was I scrapping off the evening dinner plates into the garbage but then he knew of the world’s indifference and you mother at some disconnected hour in the morning with your … Continue reading Rain in Dublin by Gary Beaumier→
William Prindle has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2022 Poetry Contest Progress Report 50 Years after Reading Black Elk Last night in the silences between barred owl calls I thought I heard some people passing by the pond. Might have been plangent minor chords of bullfrog and fowler’s toad sounding a bit like human voices, but I picked up hints of Cherokee heading west, or was it Monacan disappearing into the high coves? I thought I heard bluegill or maybe perch rising to The surface to feed, but maybe it was only the sound … Continue reading Progress Report 50 Years after Reading Black Elk by William Prindle→
Jeff Ventura has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2022 Essay/Memoir Contest The love of a husband for a wife, of my father’s love for my mother, is scattered in my memory like peach blossoms after a spring storm. Sometime in the mid-to-late 70s, my mom—pregnant, and happy to leave the hot production floor of the Bonnie Lane pajama factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts—decided to open her own “beauty shop.” After all, she had graduated top of her class from the LeBaron Beauty School, and had, for a time, rented the best chair at the … Continue reading Dee’s Salon by Jeff Ventura→
Sara Biel has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest I Want to Give Him a Chance Her voice is thin, scrapes and rolls, a dry leaf across the sidewalk. My fingers grip the phone, heart a bird in my throat. “He loves me,” she says “I want to give him a chance.” Her thoughts a murmuration, fear and hope lost together. My fingers grip the phone, heart a bird in my throat. The sun ducks behind the cover of the sinking city. “He said he loves me” her voice a startled hover … Continue reading I Want to Give Him a Chance by Sara Biel→
Nate Jacob has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Mourning Doves Looking back, the choice seems obvious. A man is given the chance in life to select from a pantheon of plumed angels which will carry his tune forever on winds. My father, from what I can only imagine was a young age, took to mimicking the mourning dove with two gentle hands cupped just so together and a breath gently pressed from pursed lips: two poofs, he blew . . . and blew . . . and blew He taught that … Continue reading Mourning Doves by Nate Jacob→
Elizabeth Nowak has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Dear Mi-Kwon Before the whole world went mad, you wrote to ask about my life in beautiful America. I could not then describe in words we both know how gray the sky is. There is little these days except skinny arms passing money and brown bags through a hole in the wall of the Big Red Liquor store. I’ve grown sick watching it and the chitter of birds outside my window. I am thinking often of that day in spring when you took … Continue reading Dear Mi-Kwon by Elizabeth Nowak→
Zeina Azzam has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Forgive Me For lying to the teacher in the school yard Talking ill of my friend behind her back For making an excuse to leave early while visiting my mother in her sick bed For walking away from a lover without explanation, running from remorse I have felt guilty about slapping my small son’s hand so many years ago About acting impatient, bitter, callous, spiteful, unfriendly, or mean with those I love and those I don’t. These thoughts return often like mosquitoes in … Continue reading Forgive Me by Zeina Azzam→
Victoria Korth has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Mr. Abraham You would unstick huge floor-to-ceiling windows with a metal-clawed broom handle, soak the floor where someone vomited, clear sleeted walks while we waited in line, quiet the boiler, keep water flowing in fountains, walk around the school’s perimeter in faded green pants, head down, and into the basement while in the classroom, at the window or in the hall I watched you. Although I have lived the question of how one person knows the other and accepted that we did not, … Continue reading Mr. Abraham by Victoria Korth→
William Prindle has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2021 Poetry Contest Apologizing to Ferlinghetti You never took the deal the hand America dealt what did you have to lose anyway father and mother dead or gone mad you spoke French first so why not bat the English words way out there fungoes of the mind screw the form screw the State just write and how you wrote wrote and sold sold like hell turned on the Lights published Howl screwed the Court didn’t thank the Academy that did … Continue reading Apologizing to Ferlinghetti by William Prindle→
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