Poems • 2020 Contest Honorable Mentions

New Wisconsin Poetry

Honorable Mention Poems from our 2020 Poetry Contest

Of Many Wings

I was Of

a soul with wings of grace, ’til gravity’s per sistent pull on

many wings that rain the sky in shades of mist and sunset fire. space, tumbled me With shapes that helpless into finite frame to What speak of ancient times breathe in lessons of mortal if and shine a beacon pain. To learn what I have come there for future rhymes. The poetry of here for and plumb the depths were collective life in patterned wings of love and sorrow. To no lends hope to strife and lifts savor tastes of tender- walls, the faltering flight of those ness and wrap my no that follow us like arms round joy- doors, symphony bows fulness. Pouring no tracing melodies to treasured seeds on space sing—one note spills, earthen floor, tending be- blends into another, mystery; tween until our sacred us any- kites garden more run of ? out the of soul. string.

Rachel Durfee

Rachel Durfee is a visual artist and poet from Madison whose work has been featured in the collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the University of Wisconsin, as well as internationally.

He Screams

A man on a bicycle. Does he strain into his vocal cords because he is angry, wonder why he is riding on this track going around in circles as his life seems to veer off in jagged directions, no winding road home.

He screams. Mouth open wide, throat thrust under his chin. He screams, but he is alone, no other riders beside or behind him—does he deserve to ride alone—but no, he wears tank and shorts of a country it seems can never be his.

He screams. Tears carve themselves into his cheeks. Maybe he is happy and yelling in joy to have made this ride, to have won the race, to have escaped the poverty and nothingness he’s had all his life. He screams in triumph in success, in fear he will end his youth.

Jackie Langetieg

Read more award-winning poetry from Wisconsin poets at wisconsinacademy.org/poetry. Jackie Langetieg is a regular contributor to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. She has written five books of poems, most recently, Letter to My Daughter, and also a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold. Her poem, “Tai Chi in Four Movements,” was selected Poem of the Year by the Wisconsin Academy in 1999. She lives in Verona with her son, Eric, and two cats.

In Which Wooly Mammoths Save the World, Starting with Siberia, Because Permafrost is Melt and Carbon is Release

First, find the reliquary: Collect the bones of the mammoth, regurgitated onto the shore by the agitate cycle of thawing permafrost, rinse clean by the frigid lake’s lapping, swelled in a jumble of reeds on the pebbled shore.

Second, bioethics and cloning: Something, something DNA, scientists, test tubes, maybe a centrifuge and probably an elephant. Wait ten years. A mammoth is not a velociraptor, so don’t worry about any of that.

Third, intermodal transit: Carefully place brand-new, sedated mammoths into canvas slings and hoist them high enough so their fur-fringed foot pads don’t drag along the tree line and bring the helicopter down.

Fourth, implied consent: Wake them gently with caresses as they lie on the tundra overgrown with saplings that hoard particles of heat like gold; coax them onto the spongy ground barely able to contain their weight. Consider giant snowshoes to diffuse their ungainly mass?

Fifth, labor: After a good long drink at the lake through supple bristled trunks, when they peer out coquettishly from eyes curtained by long lashes against the snow; show them how to trample the trees, strip the leaves, leave the tundra bare, cooling the earth’s fevered brow.

Sixth, pray: Though it be zaprescheno, pray.

Jill Madden Melchoir

Jill Madden Melchoir lives, works, and writes just north of Green Bay. By day, she’s an attorney in an online legal publishing company, which supports her biking and photography habits. She has three kids and spends as much time as possible on the Menominee River and Lake Michigan.

Village Post Office

There’s a truck double-parked in the only parking spot. The guy at the counter owns a construction business,

is telling the clerk all the things he’s built. “That bank in Eau Claire? I built that one, too. …” After a few more buildings

he leaves. I’m the only customer now. The clerk knows me, we trade personal gossip, she shuffles through my mail.

It’s sacred, and made of the things we know won’t last: bits of paper, news, postage. They go away from here,

arrive by some strange alchemy where we want them. Nothing else quite works like this. Shopping was fine.

Two people in town told me more snow was coming: “Everyone in town says more snow is coming.”

It’s been a bad winter for old buildings and snow. The annex of our barn fell under the snow.

The firehouse roof fell under the snow. They had to put the trucks in the school parking lot.

We agree it’s not the snow, it’s the other drivers. She tells me to stay warm, drive safely.

Melaney Poli

Melaney Poli is an artist, writer, and Episcopalian nun. She is the author of the accidental book of poetry You Teach Me Light: Slightly Dangerous Poems and an accidental novel, Playing a Part, both from Wipf & Stock.

Thermos

There’s something to be said about standing on the center line of a bustling four-lane road, cars skimming by in front and behind me as I watch my stainless steel thermos bumble along toward the opposite curb like a rolling pin or pipe bomb. I admire its resilience— ten years of service, three times forgotten, then dropped off the car roof. Today it balanced for five or six blocks before taking the dive, striking the road with a loud enough ping for me to pull over, prepare for the worst.

And now I’m in the middle of the road, not, as I should be, prioritizing my life over a full thermos of coffee, but rather urging the thermos on as it cleverly avoids commuters’ tires. When it bumps up against the far curb, I give a small fist pump. I also wave at the good people in the cars who have kindly stopped, let the crazy old guy run across to retrieve his prize thermos, still full of coffee, which he will drink later at his desk.

Guy Thorvaldsen

Guy Thorvaldsen’s poetry has appeared in various publications, including Alligator Juniper, Poet Lore, and Verse Wisconsin. His first book of poetry, Going to Miss Myself When I’m Gone, was published in 2017 by Aldrich Press. Thorvaldsen lives in Madison and is a journeyman carpenter, retired teacher, husband, father, and contributing poet/essayist for public radio.