2005 LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY AWARD
Oil on Canvas, circa 1825
Not easy to be unlovely,
to have a nose that meets the world
like a plow blade
sharp enough to cut through soil heavy
with clay, sturdy enough to shove fist-
sized stones from the furrows;
to know the frills of lace
around your face cannot soften the lines
of your majestic prow.
The irony of your blossom-
shaped bonnet is not lost upon you;
you know you are
no rose. There are no rings
on your fingers, no children dressed
like small adults posing
beside you, their hands
obediently laid against your knee.
What happiness?
In your hand, a leather-bound book
with gilded pages; in your pocket,
the key to your front door.
Patricia Hale
Patricia Hale has promoted rabbit raising in the Philippines, performed honeybee disease research in Wyoming, and appeared in two Indian movies. She earned an M.A. in English literature and briefly taught composition to college freshman. She lives with her son in Connecticut where she makes her living as a corporate information technology professional and occasional freelance reference book editor. She is devoted to the craft and practice of poetry and has just recently started sending her work for publication. Her poetry is published in the Owen Wister Review.
2005 LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE FINALIST
The Stone
A widower’s song
I’ve carried a stone in my pocket for six months now.
I often mistake it for nickel--it’s smooth and gray,
like the shadow of a gray goose over lake water
on a dull October day--like that day last October
when we walked along the shore and you flew off.
You flew away to find your father, to feel his hands
around your waist, as you kicked and flapped in the water.
You flew off to see your mother, reading at a picnic table
among the pines, and hear, once more, crazy Toby,
barking from the dock. When you returned to me,
you reached into the water, brought up a goose-shaped stone,
bounced it in your palm--stirred, tumbled, and washed
these eighty years--and tucked it in your pocket.
And now I hold the stone, hoard it, as I wait
with my groceries in the check-out line, wait
beside the green florist buckets full of daffodils,
sunflowers, tulips, and the ones we loved best,
long stalks of quince with their first hint of pink bud.
Laura Black
Laura Black is completing the MFA poetry program at Georgia State University (Atlanta), where she also teaches creative writing and freshman composition. Her poetry is published in Pearl, The Sow’s Ear, and GSU Review, among others. She was a finalist in the 2004 Agnes Scott College Writers Festival and received a Special Merit Award and First Honorable Mention in the 2004 Grandmother Earth and Life Press Award.
2005 LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE FINALIST
Eating History by Carole Wade Lundberg
We know the stories:
The king is dead; long
live the king. And
farther back in time
--if not in evolution--
sons who slay fathers
feast on their hearts
hoping to ingest some
secret power. Each
woman in her secret
heart acknowledges
the corollary: Daughters
of ancient queens
drinking mother’s
power with her blood.
Tragic tales, stuff of
gothic novels, the worst
sort of magical thinking
but take that gothic shovel
and unearth the allegory:
Find yourself at the kitchen
table with your daughter;
note with sudden clarity
how she probes your thoughts,
your history, your motives
like a sleuth uncovering
the crime that is her
life (and which you
have allowed to occur
without clues)
Think also about those
endless conversations
she has had with her
sisters--out of your
hearing certainly, but
fully transcribed by
your intuition--
those conversations
in which they explore
with urgent cruelty
the separate truths
of their history
dissecting, digesting
with words the Mother,
the Father, Life
before singular
and stellar event
of their own births
feeding each other
bits of information
as if the outcome
of some crucial
epiphany depended
upon their ingesting
each scrap.
Remember how even now
when your sisters
come to visit--grey
haired as aging queens
--the litany of succession
begins: “Did you know?”
Did she tell you?”
devouring with each
mouthful of streusel
each bite of tuna
casserole, the particular
rag, bone, hank of hair
that placed us here.
Carole Wade Lundberg
Carol Wade Lundberg of Penngrove, California teaches creative writing at Santa Rosa Junior College and in private workshops. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in several journals, including Poetry New York, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Albatross, Jane’s Stories, Square Lake, and Green Mountains Review.