Sol Magazine (C) 1999 -
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Dear Readers: The best way for poets to sharpen their skills is to enter contests in competition with other writers. Sol Magazine's Assistant Editors have no opportunity to enter our own contests, so we encouraged them to enter the 29th annual Winter Poetry Festival, sponsored by the Houston Chapter of the Poetry Society of Texas. On December 4th, that organization announced the winning poems from the annual poetry competition. Three of Sol's Assistant Editors entered one or more of the contest categories, and took home more than ten percent of the total prizes. The Managing Editor of Sol Magazine was proud to read their poems in front of the other winners. The winning entries are included below. Fantastic work, staff! Mary M. Carlisle, Managing Editor ============ NOTE: Each of the twenty-four contests awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes. Each contest was "judged blind" by the sponsor of the contest. "Blind judging" means that all identifying names and addresses have been stripped away from the poem and then sent to the judges, who must judge without knowing who wrote the work. Sol Magazine sponsored one of the contests, and we had no idea some of our editors had entered that particular contest when the Managing Editor judged the work. |
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Old Lovers Award
Leo F. Waltz Award
Precious Gifts Award
Lucidity Poetry Award
Woods Award
1st Place: Craig Tigerman
Crossroads (a sestina)============
I'm at a bittersweet crossroads in time,
A rose horizon, summer turning fall.
All innocence of nature thrives on love,
Yet what is ripe must too soon lose its hold;
And when likewise shall I in fading light
Make my final descent into the night?
For in the secret sweetness of the night
My heart has journeyed far 'cross space and time,
A gypsy moth attracted to sweet light,
Reached untold heights of wonder, then free-fall
Forever, as with music taken hold
By rapture's rhapsody of endless love.
But summer glories innocent in love
While many streak-red sunsets slip to night,
Till soon the ripened fullness cannot hold;
So to the unrelenting troubler, time,
The picture-perfect solstice-world must fall,
Toward humbling numb December's slanted light.
Now wistful in September's blue twilight,
I see the coming cold the price of love;
But winter's chill can't change the splendid fall!
I'll say I've had my day when comes the night,
And turn with tear-bright eyes to Father Time,
Extend my hand, eternity to hold.
For there is nothing greater to behold
Than ever-vernal heav'n-eternal light,
A glimpse of which I'm blessed with, for a time
In this unlikely life, an angel's love
When I was blind: "You'll make it through this night;
Just look my way, I'll never let you fall."
I know the glow, and it shall show, this fall!
Through winter, and beyond, nothing shall hold
This love in chains, no forces of the night
Shall lay claim to this tender sweet delight.
This crossroads, there is only one road: love,
With angels all about us, all the time.
I see it clearly now: fall is the time
For growing love, to share and bring more light,
To hold us closely through long winter's night.
Lifting Away From the Surface
The whole affair requires
a sense of timing
where we take our rest--drink our fill
in the sheer swarm--
of running-in tide
rising, flawlessly
into the not so visited shallow spaces
winding then into tucked away shadows.
This is what we always meant to be
the sky gleaming brilliantly
sun sparks dazzling across the rhythm of waves;
the forgetful arc-shaped course spilling out
from the sound of water slapping.
2nd Place: Betty Ann Whitney
Where You Are Gone
Between earth and space
A blue pond night
Slips everywhere--
Out of nothingness
Full strength, down
Over, and into the quiet
Emptying of my heart.
No one is here... but for
The passing of words
We should have said... expanding
Like small seeds floating
Across the disappearance of us.
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3rd Place: Jean McAllister
Fadeout
A jet trail tapers, mimicking the hawk now circled beyond sight--
mocks with fading roar
The hawk's dispassionate whistle:
Lonely there.
The loveliest blue fades with the sun
Even in the sky, brightness
And hope wash out like dye sluiced out of madras cloth;
Lonely here.
1st Place: Betty Ann Whitney
Gesticulation
In a roomful of people
the hands
impassioned and poetic--
like private memories fledged
move in shapes, like
a magical circuit
set into space
mindless, yet concentrating
I suppose
on design
like the Artist does.
2nd Place: Betty Ann Whitney
Comes This Waking
Still light ripened night
You touch the body of my skin
As if it were your own...
Long after we first touched bright moments & slow
Sweet patterns of silk, when we loved each other
No less.
How we danced, remember--
In a rhythm hard & loud, we moved to the sound
Of Haley & The Comets, Fats & all the best.
Going on sixteen, I was in love with the sound of music
You learned to love, hot rod angel, hid under the hood
You could have loved more than life itself
That dream you sold much later to buy us a house,
Even after I learned the sound of its engine
Driving across country roads...
In that house you learned to love the foods I liked best
In spite of the way I cooked, learned to listen
For pity sakes about nothing, while I talked long into night
In that house I learned to see past windows
Admitting skies of many different hues
Could be as lovely & familiar, learned to love
The way you named each sky our home...
And how we danced to the sound of voices, our children
With arms wrapped, still holding on to us
--grown by now our children know that love
Is not an easy thing.
1st Place: Betty Ann Whitney
Where the Heart of the City Grows Increasingly Closer
It takes only five minutes to get here
to where a few short months ago
this place was nothing
but marshes and pastures.
It is early Monday afternoon
in our four door sedan
moving slowly through the parking lot
at the newly constructed shopping plaza
when we see how still--
how still we see
reflected in the glass storefront doorway
the lost stare
of sandhill cranes.
Sincere congratulations to the winners from Sol Magazine!
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All poetry remains the property of the poet. NONE may be reproduced
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as long as no portion of this magazine is changed and all credits are given.
See our contest website or last contest for current guidelines.
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Sponsors in 2000: Lois Lay Castiglioni, James Lay.
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Angels in 2000: Leo F. Waltz.
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New sponsors and angels always welcomed. Thanks for your support.
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Sol Magazine's Web Site: http://pages.prodigy.com/sol_magazine
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Sol Magazine (C) 1999
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