InterBoard Poetry Competition Update

Last week we received the announcement of July winners in the InterBoard Poetry Competition, and we understand that the judge has nearly finalized his choices of August winners—although the announcement will likely be held up for a couple of weeks to allow the winning July poems their time in the spotlight. July was the first month in Tony Barnstone’s term as IBPC judge, and his choices seem to indicate a fondness for poems that dive deep into the wilds of the human psyche to arrive at lines that give off a “perfectly right strangeness”:

• In first place, he chose “Feast of Disappointments,” by Linda E. Cable, a “a lyrically overheard bit of memory-thought-consciousness” whose image rhymes he particularly admired.
• He awarded second place to “Seventeen, Before the First Time” by Ange Law, a poem that succeeds in spite of its hackneyed workshop bag of tricks because of its “utter psychic wildness... deep, archetypal vocabulary... relentless sexual pace, and gorgeous sounds.”
• For third place, he selected “Roots” by Ken Ashworth, which he singled out as an example of “a good narrative poem, lovely in its bones.”

Barnstone also offered comments on three poems he selected for honorable mention: “Drowse” by Bernard Henrie, “Aftertaste” by Brenda Morisse and “Sleep” by Tom Allen.

Despite our entreaties, the Forum poets have not been very active recently in suggesting poems for IBPC entry, nor have some of the nominated poets provided the required permission and information. Because there was only a single nomination posted in the InterBoard Poetry Competition folder, Poetry Guide Margy Snyder has chosen our three entries for this month’s InterBoard Poetry Competition. The poems chosen to represent the About Poetry Forum are:

• “The Crumbs You Scatter” by Deb Ouellet
• “In Your Eyes” by Tim J. Brennan (68degrees)
• “The Back of Beyond” by T. Obatala (trkyounger)

All three poets have served as our envoys to past InterBoard competitions, and we hope you agree these particular poems represent very fine work by all three poets. Applause, applause!

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
Background information, poem links and book-buying links for current IBPC judge Tony Barnstone