Poetry

Deposition ~NEW~

A Poem
by Doug Ramspeck

Say two crows at dusk in an auburn sky.
But which is the augury of which? Or then
a cottonmouth slipping like ripe fruit into the reeds.
Our ribs feeling as hollow as a stream bed… (read more)

Field Guide at Dusk ~NEW~

A Poem
by Doug Ramspeck

It will not do. This weak-willed light slipping
from the grass, pale as hands folded on a chest.
No breeze to animate the hickory leaves,
to ripple the surface of the creek… (read more)

Notes from a Tuesday Traffic Jam and Royal Transit

poems
by Mark Neely
Visit with Mark Neely
“Notes from a Tuesday Traffic Jam” began when I was sitting in one of those highway traffic jams where you move about a half-mile in an hour. With the car at a virtual standstill, I grabbed a pen and a map of Illinois (the only paper I could find) from the glove compartment and scribbled down images and fragments as fast as I could until the traffic started to clear.

When Elijah Pritchett Goes to the Gym

A Poem
by Julie Marie Wade
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…about a year ago, I remember announcing that I wanted to write a poem called “When Elijah Pritchett Goes to the Gym,” and Elijah laughed, but I think he has such a unique and literary name, and I just felt it belonged in a poem. Elijah Pritchett actually sounds like a character in a can’t-put-down kind of novel, but he’s also such a character in real life that I wanted a poem that could honor him and the friendship the three of us share.

Third Surgery

by Rochelle Hurt
First Place Winner, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
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The voice in “Third Surgery” manages to be firmly insistent and heartbreakingly vulnerable. The poet sets the body’s trauma and its resilience against the workings of the natural world, the familiar and the unknowable—a beautifully balanced achievement. –Claudia Emerson, 2011 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize judge

Girls on Lake Pewaukee Consider the Future

by April Goldman
Runner-up, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize

The collective voice of the “girls” masterfully rendered, the reader lingers as well on the threshold between the body’s awareness—reluctant, still submerged—and that of the intellect, fiercely forming. –Claudia Emerson, 2011 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize judge

Firstborn

by Emily Pulfer-Terino
Runner-Up, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
Visit with Emily Pulfer-Terino

“Firstborn” expresses with lyric intensity a particular anxiety, reforming the experience of the only child’s displacement to “firstborn” and sibling—and in the process delightfully pairing the architecture of the “world” and its rooms with that of the mother. –Claudia Emerson, 2011 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize judge

Snow, for Instance

by Austen Rosenfeld
Special Mention, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
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I started writing this poem on my twenty-third birthday, which felt different from other days because birthdays always do. But this year, I wanted to investigate exactly how it felt different, so I dissected the texture of the day in a very scientific way.

The Best Ideas

by Emily Pulfer-Terino
Special Mention, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
Visit with Emily Pulfer-Terino

Perhaps the only consistency in my writing process is that I always write aloud, voicing drafts over and over, to try to satisfy my ear and breath.