Dragonfly. Photo by Karin Addis

 

Texas poet LaVern Spencer McCarthy judged the April Poetry Challenge. She was impressed with the overall quality of submissions, wishing she could honor more than the six poets she selected, the first, second and third place poems, which will be published here, and three poems given honorable mention but not published (see the list of honorable mentions below).

McCarthy awarded first place to “Dragonflies after the Flood” by Joan Leotta, who has been a Poetry Challenge winner before. The poem does not specify which kind of dragonfly was involved, so it may not have looked like the one in the photo by Karin Addis, a Chicago-area music teacher and nature photographer.

 

Dragonflies after the Flood

On the porch, stench of mud all around.
Grass, sidewalk, up to the first step.
A dragonfly follows me to the front door
then flits away when we go inside.
My husband grabs a flashlight and
flips on the electricity in the garage.
The air conditioner growls awake.
I press the opener. The big white door lifts
revealing poisoned stinking
mud spread from end to end.
We glance about to gauge
what can be saved, what is
irretrievable from the grasp of the storm.
Dragonfly glides in from the porch
He has brought a friend.
I try to shoo them out.
“Chemicals, who knows what else,
is in the air here. Leave! Leave!”
They stay. We work.
We cannot breathe the fetid air for long.
About to close the door,
I try again to get the dragonflies to leave.
I think I have chased them out,
but in the morning when I open the door,
I see them, in the middle of the floor,
curled up next to each other,
like lovers—angel faces smiling up at me,
gossamer wings still shining as they did in life.
I begin to cry.
So many have lost so much in the flood
what we have lost, money can replace.
I am crying for the dragonflies.
They survived the storm, the water rising.
dying only in the fetid air after the storm.
Dragonflies, why didn’t you listen to me?
My tears will not revive you.

 ~ Joan Leotta

About this poem, McCarthy said, “The poignant imagery of 'their angel faces smiling up at me, gossamer wings still shining,' led me to give this poem 1st Place.

 

The poet to whom McCarthy awarded second place doesn’t tell us what kind of insect is involved until the end of her narrative poem.

Hitchiker

Four little girls strapped into their various-sized booster and car seats
SCREAMED
at the top of their lungs.
An enormous, fat, and very bright lime green insect
(NO MOMMY, IT’S NOT A BUG!  IT’S A MONSTER!)
clung to the driver’s side door mirror.
I promised them
IT WILL FLY AWAY WHEN WE START GOING.
Unperturbed, it hung on as I accelerated to 60 miles per hour.
It rode all the way home attached to us, like a barnacle.
Wait.  A car-nacle.  Ha!
Oblivious to speed, potholes, speed bumps, and 
SCREAMING,
we six arrived at home, and four little girls
REFUSED
to exit the vehicle while the monster was still attached
    to mommy’s mirror.
It was up to me, their brave, super-hero-sans-cape, to fight the dragon.
I exited the vehicle on the passenger side (knowing
that if I rolled down the driver’s side window, the thing
might actually come inside, and that would result
in a kind of mayhem I wanted to prevent at all costs). 
I marched around the front of the car,
and with a mighty flick of a finger,
it flew on rattling wings into the summer night singing
KATYDID.
I whispered
katydidn’t
as I tucked four little girls into bed.

~ Terri Bocklund

“Hitchhiker,” says McCarthy, is “a lively poem, made even livelier by the thought of four little girls screaming as they watched a 'monster' on the car windshield. This was a very entertaining poem. I also liked the format.”

 

Several of the poems submitted this month were poems about cicadas. This one merited third place:

When the Cicadas Start to Churr

A hazy summer day in Texas
    looks hazier
When the cicadas start to churr.

The creaking cane bottom rocking chair
    stops its creaking
When the cicadas start to churr.

My glass of sweet tea on the iron table
    tastes sweeter
When the cicadas start the churr.

The soft southern breeze crossing the porch
    feels softer
When the cicadas start to churr.

The sticky hot summer day in Texas
    gets hotter
When the cicadas start to churr.

A lazy summer day on Granny's front porch
    gets lazier, looks hazier, sounds quieter, tastes sweeter
     feels softer, feels hotter,

When the cicadas start to churr.

~ Rebecca Lowe

“When The Cicadas Start To Churr,” says McCarthy, “brought back so many memories to me. A Texas native, I still remember sitting on Grandma's porch on summer nights, listening to the cicadas with perhaps a thunderstorm brewing. This was a well-worded descriptive poem, and I enjoyed reading it.” This poem makes good use of repetition, and looks good on the page.

 

Winning poets retain copyrights to their poems.

 

Honorable Mentions:

1st H.M.—Dragonfly by Lynn White. I learned from this poem that dragonflies can bite. I researched it and found if one is grasped by its abdomen it will bite. This poem taught me something I did not know, and that was why I gave it a place. It was also tightly written with good usage of words.

2nd. H.M.—Swarms by Christy Schwan. Who among us hasn't inadvertently walked into a swarm of gnats, mosquitoes or other little pests and tried to drive them away by slapping and waving at them? I gave this poem a place because it made me laugh about the neighbor waving back.

3rd. H.M.--Nocturnal Symphony by Dee Allen. This was one of the most comforting poems of the entries. I like it because it reminds me of summer nights with its various insect sounds. Very peaceful poem.

 

Bios:

Terri Bocklund is a published author, singer, songwriter, and composer now intent on developing her poetry chops.  She is a mother of four (the referenced ones) and grandmother of four and a half.   She grew up in Minnesota, raised her family in Maryland, and now resides in Marquette, Michigan.

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Although she is not in general a fan of the insect world, she respects all creatures and truly did grieve over the loss of this pair of dragonflies.

Joan's work has been published in journals in US, Australia, England, Canada, Ireland, and in various English journals in Europe.

Rebecca Lowe thinks of herself as the Grandma Moses of the poetry community. After teaching high school literature for twenty-five years, she decided it was time to practice what she teaches. She says she is a late starter to writing poetry and hope to soon become a later bloomer.

LaVern Spencer McCarthy has won many awards for her poetry. She has published five books of poems and three books of short stories. Her poems have been featured in many state society anthologies and newspapers. She is a life member of the Poetry Society of Texas and is a member in several other state poetry societies. 

Thank you to everyone who send an insect poem this month, and to Lavern Spencer McCarthy for serving as the judge.

Watch for a new challenge on May 1.

 

 

© Wilda Morris