Inquirer 2013 Poetry contest winners
We asked, you wrote, we like! Our second annual Inquirer poetry contest attracted more than 200 entries from all over the place, on subjects ranging from swimming to astronomy, pets to love. So many people out there care about poetry and are writing good stuff. As we did last year, we're printing the three finest of many fine poems, with thanks to all. A further selection appears online at www.philly.com/poets.
We asked, you wrote, we like! Our second annual Inquirer poetry contest attracted more than 200 entries from all over the place, on subjects ranging from swimming to astronomy, pets to love. So many people out there care about poetry and are writing good stuff. As we did last year, we're printing the three finest of many fine poems, with thanks to all. A further selection appears online at www.philly.com/poets.
A Wall-Eyed Pike in a Glass Tank
Open mouthed, like Placido Domingo
holding a high note, he charges the glass
he can't see, separating him from the minnows.
Close mouthed now he circles
his lissome body reminding of that favorite lover
you pushed back anyway.
Leading with a hunter's grin, again he slams.
Shakes it off again and again and again.
Each side of his head like a toddler's table set with adult-sized dinner plates. He swims away, dorsal fin rippling like a ruffle of spears.
Only when he stops trying do they lift the glass.
Then tiny fish rub against his hungry lips
against his goldish, greenish sides
against his blood-filled gills.
And he starves to death.
His open eyes reflecting available minnows.
- Helen Townsend
Helen Townsend, 49, of Indianapolis, Ind., works as a nurse consultant in the field of tuberculosis. She also practices yoga and meditation. Townsend was born in Fort Scott, Kan., and is working on a book about a hometown hero. And, by the way, she's a vegan.
Checkerboards in Winter
The diehard players are there,
Hunched over their granite board,
Wrapped in scarves and capped in wool,
Their breath like puffs of pipe smoke.
One had brought a snow scraper,
His buddy a bath towel.
Together they had wiped the
Early snow from the checkerboard squares.
Around them three kibbitzers stand,
Watching the play move by move,
Shuffling their feet to stay warm . . .
A wintry tableau in the park.
These men come in all weathers,
Retirees with little else
But each other and their game,
Apart from the city's life.
Once they came with wives and kids
In days of spring and summer.
But now they bring their checkers,
Their castles, bishops, and pawns.
- Mitch Davis
Mitch Davis, 73, of Ambler is "semi-retired" after a 40-year career in the microelectronics field. Now a freelance writer/journalist/food critic, for the last four years he has led the Poetry Writers Workshop at Temple University's Association for Retired Persons, now called the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
The following correction was added on April 30:
Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section published three winning poems from the Inquirer Poetry Contest, held as part of Poetry Month. The contest announcement stipulated that only poems that had not previously been published were to be entered. After the winning poems were published, The Inquirer was made aware that "Tourette Poem #13" by Anthony DiFiore had been published in 2004, in the journal Philadelphia Stories. The author said he had forgotten that it had been published there.
Tourette Poem #13
I've burdened my son with this now.
He misses strides, kisses the silence,
twists himself into a wretched mess.
A guest in his own body,
he is uncomfortable with the gaze
of strangers.
Too young to be so cautious,
too innocent to grapple with the whims
of that body gone haywire,
he stands at the edge of a narrow
morning, hoping that what
is his prison will someday be his palace.
"Daddy," he says, "what disguise
do you wear to fool yourself?" or
"Can you taste on your tongue
the slow way
mountains move?"
- Anthony DiFiore
Anthony DiFiore, 63, lives in Media and is married with three children ranging in age from 12 to 28. He manages a thrift store in Broomall. "Tourette Poem #13" is from an unpublished (intentionally) series called The Tourette Poems.
