Robert Frost Poetry Contest

The winners of the prestigious Robert Frost International Poetry Contest have been announced and are available to read in the Sep/Oct issue of The Saturday Evening Post. 

Each year The Saturday Evening Post will be presenting to its readers (in the magazine and online) the winning entries in the Robert Frost International Poetry Contest. America’s favorite poet, Frost (1874-1963) won four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. This competition for budding poets was created in his honor.
Now in its 16th year, the Robert Frost International Poetry Contest was founded by the Heritage House Foundation. It is now administered by the Studios of Key West.

Considered by many to be the heart of Key West’s bustling cultural scene, The Studios of Key West is a nonprofit arts community established in 2006 and housed in the historic Armory building in Old Town, Key West.

TSKW offers exhibitions, concerts, lectures, workshops, residencies, and partnership projects, and supports the advancement of established and emerging creative people in the Florida Keys.

TSKW visitors can tour the second floor artist studios, see exhibitions in the sculpture garden and main hall, and sign up for weekly classes or lectures.

Visitors are encouraged to visit www.tskw.org to find the most up-to date information and concert, exhibition, and course offerings.

As promised from the Sep/Oct issue, here is a sampling of honorable mentions from the Robert Frost International Poetry Contest.

POETRY Honorable Mentions

Without Bees
by Douglas Crago

So many reasons to kill,
explained in our holy writings,
taught by the generations.

To defend ourselves and our higher purpose,
to get whatever it is we want and don’t have,
to get even, to extract justice, to level the score,
for dominion, for glory, for the hunt, for the blood sport,
for our sense of importance, for our standing in the world.

On what day, do you think, will the last seed of creation fall,
will the last wild things vanish into the shadow of time,
pushed out of their habitats
into cramped, remote, uninhabitable lands,
life gradually squeezed out of them
by melting ice and prolonged droughts and mega-storms,
held at gunpoint by exploding human development,
their world poisoned with the by-products
of our cities and our farms and our endless need
to rush from one place to another.

The seas empty. The skies without flight.
The prairies and mountains and deserts
silent day and night.
Just us. Doing us-stuff.
Waiting for the rains to bring breath
to the fields without bees.

Lining Up Ducks
by Kate Marshall Flaherty
For Kristin

You always say, “Let’s line up our ducks!”—
meaning to set up a picnic,
a frolicking spot for the kids,
or a stop-for-tea place.

I imagine a flat of cut-out duckies at the Fall Fair—
teenagers peering through sights
to pick them off in a row—
yellow ducks tilt, pinging one two three!
and laugh at the sister-lingo of it,
knowing just what you meant:
lining up our ducks.

But this afternoon under lazy low-slung clouds,
I listen to the crackle of gravel under kayaks
dragged into the still lake.
I hear the cricket chorus,
the breezy oak-leaf and odd
dropping acorn pop,
and I imagine your laugh
as I peer over my notebook.

I see a Mallard leading her eight fluffy ducklings
in a perfect evenly-spaced straight line
across the tranquil water.

I marvel at the mother,
heading the parade so proudly,
never looking back
to check on the chicks
in their bridesmaids regiment,
and your silly expression
for ordering, getting straight,
symmetry.

Mother duck quacks
her uproarious laugh: wa waa waaa!
and glides on;

I am struck—
I’ve just glimpsed
one of nature’s intricate plumb lines.

HAIKU Honorable Mentions

by David Caruso

tree climbing
the smallest child
the highest up