| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
DECLARATION
Shanna Karella
(Cafe Utne)
I had a pointed fish
and the word “Look!”
forked in my direction
as we argued ourselves
blue with held-breath screamings
over dinner last night.
Today I sit amid the cosmos
and daisies and marigolds
crayoning my last stand
in big, bold letters.
It reads:
“Neighborhood Closed”
and I’ll wage it
war-like at your head,
this, my brown-paper flag
of resignation.
The doors are slammed
and windows shuttered.
Polite entreaties (if proffered)
can slide their way down the walls
and pile themselves in heaps
of tangled alphabets
upon the stoop.
There. I’ve taped it over
the threshold. Excuse me.
I have flowers to arrange.
Judge C.J. Sage’s comments: “First lines are critical to poems. This poem’s first lines are unusual, fun, risky, and downright weird; furthermore, the poem does not throw over the promise of its first lines by eventually giving in to an oblivion of averageness. Throughout its strophes, this poem’s strangeness sets it apart from the rest in a fresh, energetic, sprightly way. The poem is sassy yet not enough to be boorish, and it is unusual yet not so odd as to be off-putting. I chose ‘Declaration’ for First Place because of its playful and surprising nature.
(Suggestion: The poet might reconsider the phrase ‘at your head’; it seems to taint the situation and thus the poem by implying a threat of violence, however subtle.)”
About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
2nd Place Winner, June 2004
