Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2017

Ballad Of Poets Bygone

Tell me, where is the snow of Villon’s past?
Has it draped Camus’ mangled car during his invincible summer?
Has it chased Sexton with vodka down her watercolor street?
Has it drifted into Plath’s gas-filled lungs under red stars?
Has it been swallowed by Teasdale sleeping, silent and cold?
Has it jumped with Berryman’s awful pilgrimage from a steel bridge?
The rains came just as soft as snow to quiet troubled veins.
Poets of the past impaled by the fragility of life.
Now lie in white lily fields but the snow of poets gone.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

John Ronan

John J. Ronan is a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellow in Poetry, a former Ucross Fellow, Bread Loaf
Scholar, and Poet Laureate of Gloucester, MA.
His book Marrowbone Lane appeared in 2010 and
was a Highly Recommended selection of the Boston
Authors Club; Linda Pastan has called his work "Very
good indeed: original, assured, just a touch sardon-
ic." A new volume, Taking the Train of Singularity
South from Midtown, appeared in January. Poems
have appeared in Confrontation, Folio, Threepenny
Review, The Recorder, Hollins Critic, New England
Review, Southern Poetry Review, Louisville Review,
Greensboro Review, Notre Dame Review, NYQ, et. al.

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In the Basement

On certain isolated, indifferent days
a bright bar of light will strike
clear across the basement.
Like Newgrange or Stonehenge, except
the basement’s not aligned with anything.
The light finds something to do.
It probes bundles of books, the white
washing machine, lingers over
Christmas bins, spots the wine
and LP’s, a swing set,
half-empty cans of Artisan Apple
and Pewter Blue, the last happy
décor idea, stored here in the dark.
Turning around, you notice the dull,
narrow window that allows light
to angle in just right, without warning,
an accident really because of how
the house sits oddly on its plot,
because of the drifting position of cloud,
because of sun, the season, and the trees.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Mark Taksa

Mark Taksa’s poems are appearing in Main Street
Rag, Slant, and Trajectory, He is the author of ten chap-
books. The Invention of Love (March Street
Press), Love Among The Antiquarians (Pudding
House), The Torah At The End Of The Train (first
place in the 2009 Poetica Magazine chapbook con-
test), are the most recent.

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Flesh Monster

Roses appear on my doormat. Tight as the epoch
of covered necks, the writing asserts the future
of paper is pulp, and I should traffic in baseball cards
rare as my wooden, cleanly painted porch;
and, behind bushes, which are the moats of their houses,
lonely collectors peer at baseball faces… If I entice
a collector to trade, I can win the card of a cash king
and buy a castle… I fake a gentle eye and soft face.
I practice pitching the secrets of friendship
in a card trade. I close my door. Stalking among dog walkers,
I peer into windows. I pass the last street sign, battered
by weather. In a forest, the only house I encounter
is the memory of a castle where, long ago, I traveled…
The walls held the odor of brunt wood.
As if polishing tautness off the day, I wiped dust
from my lenses and looked memory
into the realm of rushed blood. Feast meat blazed
in the frosty fireplace. I wore animal skin no tourist could see.
I lifted a cup too chiseled for every day lips and toasted
sleepers, now, waking and wet with dance.
Lutes, drums and bladder pipes howled, purred,
and banged like bone beasts and flesh monsters.
We were leaping, swaying, bending, and uncovering.
Garden wind blew in, quaked our laughter with the crisp
of buds awaiting our stepping into spring.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Sean Howard

Sean Howard is the author of Local Calls (Cape Bre-
ton University Press, 2009), Incitements (Gaspereau
Press, 2011), and The Photographer’s Last Picture
(Gaspereau Press, 2016). His poetry has been widely
published in Canada and elsewhere, and antholo-
gized in The Best Canadian Poetry in Eng-
lish (Tightrope Books, 2011 & 2014.

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Progressions (Jazz Triptych)

Unbelievable (for Cannonball Adderley)

Blake nods, digging
(a hole for Nobodaddy) –
blues, the marriage
of heaven &
hell

The Emperor (for John Coltrane)

My Favourite Things –
Melody, Harmony,
Robe probed to its
atoms

Eleventh Hour (for Evan Parker)

Roland sounds
his horn, rout &
retreat – just
time for a
solo

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Bill Shultz

Bill Shultz is a poet, painter, farmer and frequent
traveler currently based at Green Gulch Farm Zen
Center. He received his BA Creative Writing from
Missouri State University and MA Studio Art and The-
ory from Summer Institute of Visual Art at Drury Uni-
versity.

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Waves Erupt In The Crouched at the moving edge
Night of this world and that one
much more vast, more substantial.
One who clings to truth never clings to
just one mode of operation. The song Ocean taught me once
Michael Nagler returns in water’s presence everywhere.

Wordless song. Whale’s chant.

I remember, without remembering
when, we once knew ancient songs
that moved the whole Earth.

Challenger Deep (what name do its people call it by?)
is seven thousand feet deeper than Sagarmatha stands.
Our songs reached both, the songs we received.

Crouched in the ash-colored sand
in waning moonlight singing,
waves erupt in the night, lightening rip.

Whole mountain range, whole Pacific
reduced to shadow by Earth’s turn,
erased by fog. Nothing exists but song.

Violence of the moving edge—
not land, not sea, not man
crouching, not man singing.

Just song. Waves erupting.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Shraddha Anand

I am Shradha Kannaujiya and I have written novels
named AZORA (where the real magic prevails),
unique and adventurous love story, short stories, es-
says and poems to spell the magic of love and happi-
ness in this fascinating world through the light of
knowledge and my literary works.
I just love this world selflessly without judging it as
love doesn't need any explanation. It is true, pure and
perfect as God to deify.
God has promoted me for this pious deed and I am
fortunate to serve the mankind.

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The era is not of superstitions, not hostile One Religion – one shrine:
But for that, we all have to face the trials Humanity and mankind
That come to our lives.

Those who feel happy by deceiving others,

They are ruining their peace of mind.

People are being bluffed

By spending hours in the virtual world

For momentary gain

That fades along with time.

Chattels, money and desires

Are perishable with the pace of time,

It’ll heave only anger and trauma

And make us addictive for lifetime.

So spread the colors of happiness all around But the true picture is still getting denied
If lord can do this task whole – heartedly; The gloomy eyes and empty stomach
Then who are we, to discriminate Want answers from us, underlying
On the basis of gender or religion; Is it your luxury more important
And try to control other minds. Than hunger of a poor who struggles
Happiness and pain are the result of our own deeds, to survive?
Don’t waste your precious time; Some are busy in ostentatious living
Don’t confine, in the chains of apocryphal. Some establish the statues which

hardly smile.

Love, respect and faith are shown as pillars;

Found in all the sects and quinine.

Humanity is simple,

But can’t be understood by perplexed mind

People rarely perform well,

In the drama of world directed by divine;

Accept the universal truth of love,

There is ONE RELIGION - ONE SHRINE.

Lord Buddha sacrificed his palace

To revive wisdom and knowledge,

And feel the peace of life.

Don’t wait for anyone;

As light overcomes the dark nights

Glare like sun that enlighten others

Burning itself, it shines for our sake

Coz there is ONE RELIGION – ONE SHRINE

And it’s HUMANITY AND MANKIND.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Amber McCready

Amber McCready has been published in Chinquapin
Literary Magazine and the Chico News and Review. After
graduating from UCSC in 2013 with degrees in crea-
tive writing and psychology, she moved to Portland,
Oregon. She is currently working on a collection of
poems about childhood.

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Dial For two full years after we moved to Nevada
I would call our old phone number
from any payphone I could find.
I couldn’t dial it at home,
Mom might find it on the phone bill
and I’d have to show her the closet of hurt
I kept under lock and key,
try to explain my sorrows
without adding to her own.

So I’d slip away in busy moments,
hit the silver buttons
in the first order I had ever memorized,
afraid I’d lose the muscle memory,
afraid I’d lose the girl who learned
those seven digits of home by heart.

Sometimes I would pretend
that a younger me would answer
and I would warn her of the future,
tell her to hold on tight
to those she loved
because the night
would take her away.

Other times I’d just listen
to the operator
telling me my call
could not be completed,
telling me a story
whose ending had abruptly changed.

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Danielle Garner

Danielle Garner is a substitute teacher living in South
Florida with an English degree from the University of
Miami. Danielle graduated with Creative Writing Hon-
ors and, though most comfortable as a poet, is venturing
into the world of fiction.

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I Know of a Place

I know of a place where pain is paralyzed
The same place where there is a warmth
That rushes over the soul like a pebble
In a gentle stream of lucid water.

I know of a place where, to get there,
You have to balance your bare toes
On top of a surging bundle of untamed waves
Hands unsteadily outstretched
And eyes forward in an unbroken concentration
On what lies ahead.

I know of a place that offers unparalleled shelter
Refuge, sweet asylum, rest, a green pasture to
Run wildly on with hair undone and laughter unrestrained
A place where the soul can breathe freely
And the air, like the burden, is light

I, a weary traveler, reached this place of refuge
I, a restless spirit, journeyed into the deep caverns
Where peace lies
And reached the One
With whom my soul could embrace,
Could wrap its trembling arms around.

A place where pure truth and perfect love meet
A place where “deep cries out to deep”
Where darkness cannot reach
A place of infinite peace

Come away with me

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BEST POETRY

THE FINALIST

Kathryn Gesser

Kathryn Gesser studies Professional Writing and
English Education at Champlain College in her beau-
tiful home state of Vermont. She is Head News Edi-
tor of her campus newspaper, The Crossover, and has
freelanced for various local sports publications. Her
one true love is poetry, through which she has found
a voice in an often silencing world.

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