This month, we ran a poetry contest to celebrate National Poetry Month. We challenged our readers to craft a poem using only the words that appeared in one of our newsletters (here are the original contest guidelines if you want to give it a try).
While prose is our newsletter’s bread and butter, it turns out that you all certainly aren’t op-prose-d to verse; we received several creative, intriguing, and beautiful poems that we narrowed down to our top four finalists.
Check out the poems below, including the contest winner our readers voted for.
Winner: “Libre unicorns” by Moiz A.
Sunrise traffic and ocean orcas,
Jackson street prince
and the Fremont emcee,
Occidental blooms and
a space needle for the stars,
Seattle is both, paradise and
a community of libre unicorns
Finalist: “Smashing Avocados” by David L.
Heavens to Betsy / Goodness knows
You shouldn’t be smashing / Avocados
Or poaching eggs / Or battering rockfish
Not in a pot / And not in a dish
And I do not jest / I do not joke
Salmon should not be / Allowed to smoke
Okay, that’s it I’m done / I’m getting in my car
And I’m going to get a drink / In an oyster bar
Finalist: “Spring Forth Seattle” by Chris L.
One, Two, Ready… Spring!
New Buds Attract Life and Sun
Red, Red Blooms Fill Green Parks
Sunrise, Beauty, Unicorn!
Captivate with a Verdant spell
Ambivalent Fellows of Folklore
Burlesque Bear and Moon Prince
Drag Paradise from a Sleeping Tale
Fungi Looking for Best Taco
Mount Peak, Sip Rainier Inspiration,
Transportation, Transforms
Total Eclipse of the Arts
How beautiful – Seattle!
Finalist: “The sun will set on the land that is not ours” by Alex G.
red Rainier sunrise; a simple, spell-binding show
transforms windswept precipitation into something new. sleeping still, we’ll bear folklore erasure,
submit to national programming,
and leave today’s traffic tides high;
a garden of glass, overcrowding.
Parks and Rec launched
the Year-Round Eclipse Program
to save the solar star
from the Department of Trailblazing;
good news to fungi bloom.
but what blooms from the ambivalent public,
once the original nations have died?
