Congratulations HOWL Contest Winners!

Recently my open mic reading, HOWL, sponsored a contest for best poem. I saved the money from passing the hat at every reading and challenged the poets to enter 3 pages of poetry along with a $10 entry fee to win a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place prize. Since it was our first contest, and the rule was that you had to attend 4 HOWL open mic readings a year, I worried that many of my poets would be too nervous to enter. Reading at the open mic was one thing, entering a contest to be judged was another.

I was very pleased to have 10 entries, nearly 30 poems. The fees and hat would take care of the $300 first prize. I enlisted the aid of two poets unassociated with HOWL to judge the work on a points system. It was a very close contest and highly educational for me. Judging is much more subjective than I ever thought. If you didn't win, it didn't mean your poem wasn't good. That's the truth.

After the points were tallied, I was very happy with the winners. Congratulations to Jeanne, who took first place; and to Jan who won second, and Fran who won third. All three are fine poets and wordsmiths. (Jeanne's winning poem is featured below.)

However, winning was not the most important part of this contest. (Tell that to the winner, eh?) But I think she would agree. The most important part was gathering the courage to enter. If she had not entered (and she is a fairly shy person and a fairly new poet) she could not have won. And you would not have the pleasure of reading her poem in this post.

I am proud of every woman who entered our first HOWL poetry contest. I know what it is like to submit your best work. I know what it is like to win, and I know what it is like not to win. As far as I'm concerned, there are no losers who take such a risk. When you do, you champion your own creativity and earn the admiration of your peers. It's hard, and we do subject ourselves to disappointment at times. It forces us to deal with rejection in a healthy way; in a way that does not hurt our work, but simply redoubles our determination to continue.

Write on, my poets, my peers, my peeps. What you risk, you never lose.

The Catch

Stiff wind
dances points of light
on the friendly pond.
Clear water above thick algae
Hiding minnow, water bugs, bass, perhaps.

Blue Sky
hazy with wisps of clouds--
Backdrop for the stand
of pole-like pines
ringing the dappled pond.

Live oak holds
onto its parchment-dry
leaves, resisting
the wind's call
to let go.

Waist-high grasses, brown now,
Lead me to the water's edge.
I cast and the thin fine line
Of my imagination reels off
And sinks into the rippling water.

I wait, my eye on the bobber,
Impatient for the strike,
the spark of insight
that will pull the words
from my watery soul

To form the flash
and wriggle of the poem,
the story, the work that
once hooked, comes
struggling

Into this fresh
cool winter day,
Into this moment of quiet,
Of solitude,
Of attention to.

by Jeanne Sievert
© 2010

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—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.