NORTH
MAURA STANTON —WHO MADE ME FEEL BY FEELING NOTHING
BEN MAZER —ALL IS URGENT, JUST BECAUSE IT GIVES, AND IN THE MIRROR, LIFE TO LIFE LIFE GIVES.
WEST
MARY ANGELA DOUGLAS —THE LARKS CRY OUT AND NOT WITH MUSIC
EMILY KENDAL FREY —HOW CAN YOU LOVE PEOPLE WITHOUT THEM FEELING ACCUSED?
EAST
LORI DESROSIERS —I WISH YOU WERE JUST YOU IN MY DREAMS
JOIE BOSE —ISN’T THAT LOVE EVEN IF IT ANSWERS NOT TO THE HEART OR THE HEAT BUT TO THE MOMENT, TO MAKE IT COMPLETE?
SOUTH
NALINI PRIYADARSHNI —DENIAL WON’T REDEEM YOU OR MAKE YOU LESS VULNERABLE. MY UNWAVERING LOVE JUST MAY.
CHUMKI SHARMA —AFTER EVERY RAIN I LEAVE THE PLACE FOR SOMETHING CALLED HOME.
A great line of poetry is like fine cinema: you lose yourself in its message—which you arrive at, go into, stay in, and reluctantly but happily leave, feeling like everything outside is changed, that you know hunger and life a little better, a little more intimately, all because one poet in one line has made an entire film. It is with the highest pleasure that we continue to present these winners, more winning in the judges’ eyes than the other winners: the lines of these elite eight are not only masterpieces of compression, one can die in them all day long.
Marla Muse: You say that very well, Tom. But just because you say it, does not make it so.
True, Marla. True.
Marla Muse: Don’t be sad, Tom. Look at the stars and the gates of poetry. The stars shine for all, and the stars are all; in the circling heavens all will be well, and, look! it is perhaps well, even now.
