Winners chosen in the April InterBoard Poetry Competition

In the first month of his term as IBPC judge, Bryan Appleyard has offered a detailed commentary on his selection process: “My primary cull produced a short (long) list of 14. I was then stalled. So, in fairness, I shall name the fourteen to make it clear that my final choice is forced on me only by the terms of the competition. They are: ‘Mary Lincoln Communes with the Dead,’ ‘Blas Rivas,’ ‘Drive By,’ ‘Losing You,’ ‘Oracle or Ouija,’ ‘Grief is Not,’ ‘Bird Caller,’ ‘Masked Artwork,’ ‘Drought,’ ‘For PMD,’ ‘Eclipse,’ ‘Litany,’ ‘Winterset,’ ‘River Seine.’ My secondary and final cull was based on those poems that still surprised me on fifth or sixth reading.” He selected these three poems as winners:

• In first place, ““Winterset” by Bernard Henrie, an elegiac meditation on aging that “does much with little.”
• In second place, “Mary Lincoln Communes with the Dead” by Ellen Kombiyil, lauded by Appleyard as “a triumph of tone and rhythm that easily survives multiple readings.”
• In third place, “Bird Caller” by Daniel Barlow, who “set himself a difficult task--writing a strict sonnet in a relaxed, conversational style” and succeeded admirably.

Appleyard also offered comments on the four poems he chose for honorable mentions: “Blas Rivas” by Sally Arango Renata, “Drought” by Jan Iwaszkiewicz, “For PMD” by Mitchell Geller, and “Masked Artwork” by Elizabeth DiBenedetto.

Related resources:
About the IBPC
Current IBPC judge Bryan Appleyard
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of winning poems
Archive of poems entered from our Poetry Forum