Photo Credit: Karin Addis
Wisconsin
poet Janet Leahy picked the winners of the September challenge – a list poem. The
first place poem is “Cats” by Jenene Ravesloot.
Cats
A
feral female cat with bulging pregnant sides,
an
old grey tomcat with one torn ear and damaged
voice
box that leaves him miming his meows at 6 a.m.,
a
tortoiseshell tabby cat with crusted eyelids and runny
nose
whose skinny neck still carries a pink leather collar
and
the memory of some long ago mistress, a long-haired
once-white
odd-eyed Persian cat with matted fur and broken
tail,
a striped ginger-colored kitten that balances on
the clothesline
and
hisses at you before hitting the ground hard and dashing
for
the white porcelain soup bowls of milk and dunked pieces
of
bread you’ve put out, while your mother stands in the kitchen
behind
the Irish lace curtains because she’s afraid of cats
and
thinks they’re sneaky.
You
begged and begged to feed these strays every morning
until
your mother relented. Then you poured fresh milk into
the
soup bowls, your grandmother’s best, and placed them on
the
backyard stoop. You loved to watch the cats eat their
breakfast
as
greedily as you would soon eat yours. You loved their white
whiskers
and chins dripping with milk, how they neatened
themselves,
just like good children.
~
Jenene Ravesloot
Janet
Leahy’s comments: Cats of every stripe
in this poem—details paint a picture of each one. Love the story of the poet putting milk in
her grandmother’s best white porcelain soup bowls, as her mother stands in the
kitchen behind Irish lace curtains. A wonderful memory piece.
Second
place goes to “Summer Green” by Peggy Trojan.
Summer Green
I
relish the green riot of summer.
Everyman’s
greens—
Miles
of corn stalks,
tree
shaded roads,
hayfields
everywhere anxious for mowing.
Black
green of spruce with
cones
growing seeds.
Shuddering
aspens in wind.
Dependable
maples,
delicate
tamaracks, ferns in shadows,
and
grass, of course.
My
garden greens—
Bright
asparagus poking through mulch,
dark
shiny cucumbers, chard, beans,
peas,
spinach and feathery carrots.
Bold
fans of rhubarb, whispy dill,
rough
potato bushes,
and
nameless weeds.
Special
greens—
pale
hairless caterpillar,
inch
big tree frog.
Iridescence
of dragonfly wing,
emerald
whir of hummingbird,
four
leaf clovers, and frogs by the creek.
Rare
visit of wondrous Luna,
and
your eyes, inviting mischief,
above
your Margarita.
~
Peggy Trojan
Janet
Leahy’s comments on this poem: The list of summer greens in this poem is
fanciful, the language precise and engaging:
hayfields anxious for mowing. Every line works to build the poem.
The turn in the last line is a delight, a clever fun ending, the surprise here
is well done!
Information about the
winners and the September Judge:
Jenene Ravesloot is a member of the
Poets’ Club of Chicago, Poets & Patrons, the Illinois State Poetry Society,
and Virtual Arts Collective. Her poetry has been published in many journals
online and in print. Jenene Ravesloot has published three books of poetry and
regularly runs writing workshops at Chicago venues.
Peggy Trojan enjoys life in the
north Wisconsin woods where she lives next to a trout stream. Although she had
written occasionally throughout her life, she did not submit her poems for
publication until she was seventy-seven. Published in a wide variety of
journals and anthologies: Boston
Literary Magazine, Naugatuck River
Review, Echoes, Dust and Fire, Talking Stick, and to her delight, many others.
Janet Leahy is well-known and
admired among Wisconsin poets. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of
Poets, she has two collections of poetry, The
Storm, Poems of War, Iraq and Not My
Mother’s Classroom. Her poems have
been published in print and online journals including The Wisconsin Poets' Calendar, Wisconsin
People and Ideas, Fox Cry Review,
and Verse Wisconsin. Her work also appears on the web sites such as Your Daily Poem and New Verse News. She has been a featured poetry reader at venues in
Wisconsin and Chicago.
The
poets retain copyright on their own poems.
Check
back soon for the October Poetry Challenge.
©
Wilda Morris
