POETRY CONTEST

Sandra Kleven

Poetry Contest: Order, Chaos and/or What's Happening Now?

After AWP in Philadelphia last year, Cirque staff suggested, Patterns and/ or Chaos in Nature as the theme for Cirque’s first poetry contest. “What?” I implored. “Who could write a poem on that dense subject?” So we added the alternative, “What’s Happening Now.”

“Order, Patterns in Nature and Chaos," maybe even include chaos theory, and if you couldn’t come up with something on that subject, well, just write about anything.

More guidance was provided with these scientific clarifications: We can see that self-organization occurs in many physical, chemical, biological, robotic, and cognitive systems. Animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets come to mind.

And if that’s not working for you, well, what’s happening, man?

We were not getting many entries, so at the end of August I wrote to the world in a widely cc’d email: You could win this. We’ve only got three entries. And we took off, ending with a respectable 50-something entries. About 20 of which are included in this section. The top winners, Jim Hanlen, Mary Odden and Emily Wall, pictured here will each receive $100. Thanks everyone for entering and attending the reading of the winners last fall.

David McElroy