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Second Place
Third Place
Honorable Mentions
Eugenia Toledo-Keyser
Eugenia was born in Temuco, Chile. She began to write poetry when she was in her late teens, when writing was a necessary means for personal growth, inner freedom, observation and peace. She belonged to a group of poets in her hometown, and even directed a small group of poetry once. But she stopped writing, because "life" took her away from it. The Nobel Prize winners Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda motivated her to find her own voice, along with other Chilean women who write poetry.
About three years ago, she tried to compose short stories. That became the source of her poems that she call "narrative poetry" or "pinturas habladas". Since then, she writes regularly, and reads the production of other poets around the world.
Books have been her passion all her life, since she is a Spanish teacher; which is complemented with her new incursions into the field of collages, art books, etc. She writes a lot about Nature and the elements, because she has lived in the south of Chile, and the Pacific Northwest.
Her favorite definition of art comes from a friend: Art is a way of looking at things, and we need to have a creative soul and mind to do what we do. The process of creating is very intriguing.
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POEMA DE AGUA Deep in our souls, there is a long coast of the darkest green ocean I have ever seen with its promontories and abysses, inmense waves and strange crests. Yes, a long and narrow strand. Sometimes it's a pacific sea, and its milky-yellow foam cradles the commercial vessels that reap its fish; and mark the path of the mariners seeking its hidden secrets. Seabirds, pewter and snow, savor the gift of peace. But...yesterday, the sea was efervescent fire: Spitting bromo, salt, and iodine, staggering kelp, delving deep into the rock's heart, and bronzing many shores I remember. Yes, here is where you can find us, near this brocade of silver metals, under the blue-gray clouds of the terra firma, where most of our days unfold. As first place winner in the Poetic Idol Competition, Eugenia won a prize package that includes a $150.00 cash prize; an e-Chapook of her poetry (up to 20 poems), attractively created and published for her personal or commercial use; public status as Artella's Poetic Idol in Residence; a feature interview in an issue of e-Artella; guaranteed publication in an e-Artella issue; free enrollment in her choice of Artella e-courses, the Artella eBook, "Behind the Veil", her choice of any e-Artella issue, and one month FREE Artella membership. Click here for contest details. |
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terri st. cloud
terri st. cloud combines words and watercolor to create what she calls "bone sighs", which truly are sighs from her very depths. Her work can be seen in The Shoppes of Artella at www.ArtellaWordsAndArt.com/TerriUrban.html, as well as at www.bonesigharts.com. "I believe so much that we are all connected and we all share so many of the same things inside and that we all need each other. I believe that when you truly listen to your insides and follow what you hear, magic happens."
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silver linings i walked thru hell and burned my soul. ashes falling from my hands. part of me lost forever. grieving, i found the others, burnt and charred like me. holding on to each other, i knew - even hell had a silver lining. As the second place winner in the Poetic Idol Competition, terri won a prize package that includes a $50.00 cash prize; guaranteed publication in an e-Artella issue; free enrollment in her choice of Artella e-courses, the Artella eBook, "Behind the Veil", her choice of any e-Artella issue, and one month FREE Artella membership. Click here for contest details. |
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Lyse Y. Stormont
Lyse Stormont spends her days following the whispers of her creative Muses and living out the magic of her life. She is happiest when riding on the musical notes of her everyday and experiencing the moment when the creative electricity of the Divine transforms and manifests through her. Lyse lives on 20 acres in Ontario, Canada. She is married and a stay-at-home mother of six children. She surrounds herself with words and her writing. She is an avid reader, keeps track of her ever-growing library, enjoys her many on-line book clubs and loves to listen to music. She moderates a few email groups dedicated to writing and goal achievement and is learning how to use the computer for her artwork. Lyse's other love is her six Tibetan Mastiffs. She has been a hobby breeder for the last five years and many of her dogs have made their way to the United States and Europe. She can be reached at storm@ntl.sympatico.ca.
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The Ice Angels Cried On earth's snowy bed I lay me down to sleep. I dreamed I caught a glimpse of angels' wings. I dreamed I saw Ice Angels weeping; diamond tears on crystal branches. Brittle glaze on skeletal boughs bound still. The words I whispered; "Where is home? Take me with you." My plea frozen on cold pallid lips. Downy feathers, dove white, lifted on Heaven's wintry breath of blue. I am a vagabond snow sculpture. My grave 'neath the ice in the melancholy sun. As the third place winner in the Poetic Idol Competition, Lyse won a prize package that includes a $25.00 cash prize; guaranteed publication in an e-Artella issue; the Artella eBook, "Behind the Veil", her choice of any e-Artella issue, and one month FREE Artella membership. Click here for contest details. |
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Ann McGovern
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AFTER THE AFTERWARDS We read awhile, legs overlapping. He falls asleep, glasses on, breathing calm, book fallen to the floor. I do what I do-remove the glasses, kiss him, turn out the light. Leg upon leg, we fall asleep. No trumpets please. A small given, in a full day of givens and givings. Two glasses of orange juice poured in the morning, planning the day over breakfast, laughing at birds on the feeder. Two glasses of wine poured at evening. No drum roll please. From the balcony, we watch the pond darken, cedars merge with the night. We talk shorthand, plan a trip, touch hands and knees. Then one day it happened. Wailing and moaning please. No weight of warm leg. The light burns all night; the book unread. In the morning I see a spider web, each sticky strand connected. In sunlight, I turn out the light. The birds go unfed. |
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Kathleen Ivanoff
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Mermaid for M 1. You stole my breath like water. Beneath the day red and cold stinging salt buried water. We kissed and there was my breath again. A luxury crisis. Lets look the wild looks of a criminal: The hard eye that matches your own eye, is like seeing the god which kills, unliving yourself, in a poison trance, thrilled to death, seduced by one note, monody of a polar deep, a single shade of the creeps, call it the color of our eyes; the grey green gloom of seeing yourself blind dead devil wrong. But it feels so right. 2. There is a hole in my stomach where once there was a tiger. This animal stalks me, pacing in the dark, waiting. I fear it will tear me to pieces, I stiffen. It waits in the distance, proud, like the protector of a palace. Its gaze, its breathing, is a poem that I knew a long time ago, some design that fits in an inkling. The way it waits! 3. Here is your weeping, I am stooped with water, sunk like a marble Venus. You stand at the edge, a dry stalk, snickering the wind at the unbelievable lap of water. But I see you as a whole new world, the place to be born again, if you would only reach for me, I would live, breathe, turn this water to milk, for you. 4. What can you do, stuck under water? Left to dissolve, your sparkle mixes with the bottom, and becomes unknown. The rest evaporates into a fog, haunting the surface, glanced over by a runt sun, you return again and again and again to the wait of water. 5. Notice the moon; it breathes the water like the pulse of a cradle. If you follow, it will deliver you to the shore, draped in pearls. Finally, the mermaid explodes. Her salt heart finds its shoes. |
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Kirsten Arneberg
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Out of Time I live out of time The myriad of undistinguishable seconds flow by, go by, pass by Without my slightest notion I have all my life to denounce the damnable duration of time I distort the quasi-apparently normal life I live I have thrown away my timepiece and I am a scrutineer of time-minded people Formerly I was swayed into being a machine Locked into the grasps of the watch-needles Claustrophobikally turning the hourglass before all of the sand had fallen down Now my unconscious impulses are my only obscurantisms The only remains of time's unbearable cage walls is the distiction between night and day The insolence of my watch-addicted friends is intolerable They criticize my method of solving my problems Their naivety is colossal They say I'm crazy So what if they are right? At least I control the passing of... Of what? I hate the word time... Of my existence I live my life slowly Langorously sucking every sensation out of it The moon is going down I don't know if it is night or day I don't remember the difference Maybe the sun shines in the night-time Maybe in the day-time But the moon and the sun have chosen to live out of time, just like me It is the earth and the people who desired to live alternating the day and night Not me Never... |
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Michael Koenig
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Charlotte Bus Depot, 4:45am, North Carolina Virgin Mary embroidered bas-relief upon his hat. Russet skinned, with a thin black moustache hanging onto his lip, he stands waiting with that very stache growing ever so much slower than it was one second ago. Flowerpot smiley face sack sits upon straps which saddle the soft brown back of a tiny princess ? hair braided ? hair beaded ? beautiful brown-eyed gemstone child. Four thirty turn around /turn over: burger grease restaurante business picks up a lick like a clockwork quilt with the same two gals running things as when I once dined inside two-hour-old memory. Lines long, seats scarce, loudspeaker rampant vacant meaningless nothings; people stand, pace, walk, wait, rest, and converse amongst each other while a blue balloon hangs from the ceiling draping a string, tickling the nose of the man asleep in the TV chair |
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Jessica Barrett-Koenigsberg
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My Dogs and Me Me and Buddy, and Tilly, too walking down Ridge Avenue. We walk along the street, skipping over our feet. Tilly sings a song, Buddy whistles along. Mrs. Bryant waves Hi Hi. My shoe is untied. But a loose shoe string doesn't bother me, No sir-ee! So we just keep skipping along the street, Skipping over our feet. Buddy, Tilly, and me, whistling along and singing our song. Just we three, as happy as can be. |
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Carole Trickett
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Summer Mandala My spirit draws in the deepening summer. Craving fulfilled by cinnamon yellow goldenrod illumining the dark of cattails and binding Fra Angelico blue chicory to earth. The horizon holds heaven's call in the cricket's evensong. Alpha and Omega here now in the bounty of the afternoon sun as it warms the harvest of corn, cherry red tomatoes and herbs of the field. |
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