CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR SUMMER POETRY CONTEST WINNERS!
1st Place “Mama, When Did This Rain Begin” by Darcy Smith
In Darcy Smith’s poem “Mama, When Did This Rain Begin?” the speaker longs to mend her mother’s unraveling mind: “If I could trowel November’s hard- / pack, I’d pull up long-rooted /neurons, start seedlings, fresh /shoots.” With each repetition of “If I could,” the pull of grief becomes more palpable. Our judge was struck by Smith’s use of metaphors and the poem’s quiet musicality in lines like “If I could find ruin’s root, if it revealed / itself like winter berries, like the saw- /whet owl, the white birch, leaning.” Using lush imagery and sound, the poem weaves beauty, sorrow, hope, grief, and love into a compact and poignant poem. A stand-out first place winner!
Read her poem here: https://medmic.com/mama-when-did-this-rain-begin/
2nd Place “A Mother’s Litany–How to Prepare a Child for a Hospital Stay” by Victoria Meleklan
Our judge admired the calm, authoritative voice of the speaker in Miklian’s poem as she walks the reader through the new normal of a parent whose child faces an uncertain medical diagnosis. Miklian’s litany—concrete details of ordinary life—offers, at once, practical advice, reassurance, and ultimately hope. It was this gentle uplift into hope that snagged the judge’s attention and landed her poem in our second place slot.
Read her poem here: https://medmic.com/a-mothers-litany-how-to-prepare-for-a-childs-hospital-stay/
3rd Place “Spectacle” – by Claire Unis
In the wake of despair that often arises from screenfuls of heartbreaking news, Claire Unis reminds us that wonder persists in the world. In her poem “Spectacle,” Unis manages to describe the sublimity and mutability of a sunset without veering into sentimentality.“The way everything around shows gilded. / I mean the trees, the fence, the skin / of my legs, bathed in temporality, crystallized / by the knife-edge of change.”Our judge was moved by the elegance of both Unis’s poem and its message.
Read her poem here: https://medmic.com/spectacle/