In her first month as IBPC judge, Patricia Smith has revealed her method, clearly drawing from her experience as a performance poet: “I read every poem I encounter out loud, listening for the magic it works on the open air.” She selected these four poems as winners (none of them from our Poetry Forum), and if you follow her lead and read them out loud, you will hear the reasons for her choices:

• In first place, “A Second Look at Creation,” by Sergio Lima Facchini, which impressed Smith with its “lyrical momentum... remarkably fresh view of an old story... sweet science....” and “bright, rollicking language.”
• In second place, “Spring Dance,” by last month’s winner Brenda Levy Tate (selected by a different IBPC judge). Smith cited Tate’s poem this month particularly for “the poet’s daring, the deft creation of pinpoint phrasing that conjured exactly the image needed.”
• Two poems tied for third place, both focusing on youth, a boy and a girl: “Boy, Winter 2008” by Mike LaForge, which captivated her with characters whose lives “go on well beyond the poem,” and “18—Again” by Cherryl E. Garner, for its “conciseness that embraces huge vision.”

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