Word Up! Poetry Contest
Congratulations to all those who entered. Just submitting your work makes you a "winner".
About the Contest
Established in 2008, the Cambridge Arts Festival Poetry Prize is presented annually to promote and recognize
outstanding poetry by local poets. The three top-ranked poems in each category are
awarded prizes and published in our program and on our website.
2010 Prize Winners
Adult Category | Youth Category | Judges |
Past Winners
Adult Category (ages 18+)
First Place
In the Throes of Perdition
(one earthquake survivor’s story)
by Diane Attwell Palfrey
A hungry earth engluts
—her mouth a cobra lily
bearing down.
Ten days after the sate
he rises from rubble
hymned out, his native skin
floured white.
Crowds hail Emmanuel
and swarm to touch his body
searching for wounds.
Delivering the gospel
he recalls the tang
of uric water turned to wine,
the sounds crashing in and out
like dream fits,
sirens muffled, talk of pyres
and Hebrew voices whisper
chaos to a mind
delirious from lacking.
Haunts by an apostle’s song;
a prayer that Father would send an eagle
with sustenance
further torments the wanting.
Believing life succumbed
on a goodly Friday
he concedes to the probability
that he is now a ghost
confused until his mother’s voice
is heard outside the tomb.
And for a few seconds of aftermath
there are no miracles, tragedies
or kleptocrats, just transcendence
and the barren snub of a harpy’s wing.
Second Place
The Battered Desk
by Mary Bonevelle
Your worn and beaten surface
The scars of carelessly placed cups without coasters
And still-smoldering matches, wounds long never healed,
Boasts resilience under a chain of callous caretakers.
Once a gift, then a giveaway, and then abandoned,
Now reclaimed, but dents and dings remain—
Chafed corners, eroding edges, and surfaces
Marred by errant pens, chairs, knives and ash.
Hard lines and angles silently testify to enduring strength
Hiding your weakened heart and back.
You dare the world to refinish you,
Tighten your tired joints, salve your gouges and gashes,
Embrace you with arms of polish and oil.
But, your drawer is jammed,
Jammed from the wrath of constant kicks and slams
Your bent handle hints an unintended invitation,
Accepted by many who have tried desperately to see inside.
But they may find their hands get cut
Or even worse they pry too much and stand
With detached handle in hand, drawer closed forever more.
Third Place
The Computer Swallowed Grandma
by Helene Weaver
The computer swallowed Grandma
Yes, honestly it’s true
She pressed CONTROL and ENTER
And disappeared from view.
It devoured her completely
The thought just makes me squirm;
She must have caught a virus
Or been bitten by a worm.
I’ve searched all through recycle
And files of every kind
I’ve even tried the Internet
But nothing did I find.
In desperation I asked Jeeves
My searches to refine
The reply from him was negative
Not a thing was found on line
So if inside your mailbox
My Grandma you should see
Please copy, scan or paste her
And send her back to me.
Youth Category (ages 14-17)
First Place
Songbird
by Emma Christensen
I hate the sound of my voice
My weakness
It exposes me to the world
But yet
I sing
Second Place
A Title I Can’t Seem To Think Of…
by Emily Fearon
What is writers’ block?
Is it when you have
nothing
left
to
say?
Is it when you can’t carry on a story because you don’t
know what others will think?
Is it when someone limits your creativity?
Is it when the stars, mountains, flowers, and breaths you
breathe
aren’t
inspiring
enough?
It is when being human
wrings
your
soul
raw?
And, then, you can’t write?
Is it when your scenery
gets
old?
Or is it when you’re tired, and writing on doesn’t feel right?
Maybe writer’s block’s description isn’t writeable…
Its description is itself
Third Place
The Strange Birth of a Sandcastle
by Brendan Stephens
Desiring desires within a summit of sands,
Live upon a barely wondering land
And here they stake wishes,
Nigh and high of the water
Polished eyes, refuse the sea
Like disobedient flower ignoring the sun
Pebbled tears begin to fall,
Forming soft barricades to arrest and cease
The oceans stimulus
But waves cognizing grit
Encounter stubborn shores
Seraphic liquid swoons roar
Wetting the sand into the horizon
Desiring desires within a summit of sands,
Live upon a barely wondering land
And here they stake wishes,
Nigh and high of the water.
Judges
 |
Adult Judge - April Bulmer
April Bulmer has published six books and four chapbooks. She is an award-winning poet who has won the Cambridge Arts Festival Poetry Contest.
Her most recent collection is called THE GODDESS PSALMS (Serengeti Press). She has published widely internationally and nationally in such
prestigious journals as THE MALAHAT REVIEW, ARC, PRISM international, EVENT AND Harvard's JOURNAL OF FEMINIST STUDIES IN RELIGION. She has
three Master's Degrees in creative writing and religious studies and writes often of issues pertaining to women and spirituality. She is
originally from Toronto, but has lived in Cambridge for 14 years where she is a member of the Cambridge Writers Collective.
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 |
Youth Judge - Steve Marshall
Steven Marshall is a horror writer and columnist originally from London, England. His articles have been published in various British
and North American newspapers and magazines. Many of his short stories are prize-winners and have seen print in Writer’s Journal, Simulacrum
and Thirteen Stories magazine, as well as the paperback anthologies Writers Undercover and Scratchings on the Moon: Stories from the Edge.
In 2007 his story Pieces of Lorelei’s Heart earned an honourable mention in the annual Spec-Fic World SF contest, and was released as a chapbook
by PATC Press.
He has a collection of short stories being published by Craigleigh Press in the Fall, and is currently polishing on his first
novel, The Shadow of Nova Blue. Steven also teaches a Science Fiction/Horror writing course for teens and adults, and lives in Cambridge, Ontario
where he is raising two young boys as a single father. |
Past Winners
