As in past contests, our inbox was filled with extradordinary poems written in a variety of voices with vulnerability, power, and honesty. Choosing winners was no easy task. I urge readers to review our recent and future posts to get a sense of the quality of work submitted. We thank all the poets who entered the contest and urge your continued writing and support of Medmic.
-Jane Newkirk, poetry editor
1st place: The Return by Monica Pernia Marin
A deceptively simple poem on the first read, the challenge of writing a pantoum is steep, and it’s success lies the comfort of its meditative repetition. While not directly a “healthcare-related poem,” our judge felt its cyclical flow embodied the dualities of suffering and comfort, death and life, of “new routines and second chances,” matters daily confronted in healthcare. No surprise that Ms. Marin is a geriatrician and palliative physician, as the poem speaks from that mortal edge she no doubt confronts each day.
2nd place: Atrial Fib by Skip Renker
The poem “Atrial Fib,” is as much a contemplation of the heart’s fragility and strength as it is a prayer to its workings. In an unexpected interchange of language, Renker notes the ways in which his thoughts mimic the heart’s rhythms: “When I worried, the mind fibrillated, / Spiked and spiked higher, zigzag / Thoughts and up/down feelings / That crossed and re-crossed.” It’s a quiet poem that, in the end, draws the reader’s attention to his heart’s own truths.
3rd place: Threshold by Kelly Cass Falzone:
Kelly Cass Falzone’s poem “Threshold” considers the speaker’s ambivalence in seeing an ex-lover/partner emerge from a successful mitral valve surgery. Our judge appreciated the poet’s listing of structural spaces and bodily doorways, and of the use of threshold as metaphor, in both the physical and emotional sense.
Honorable Mentions
Downhill From the Park by Carlos Reyes
Cesarean by Dale Conrad
Life Support by Carl Lowe