poetry reading: February 12

Get a little sneak preview of Valentine’s Day at SpeakEasy 6, “Love Uncensored,” when close to 20 couples read poems about love and all its entanglements. Sunday, February 12, 2012 at The Amadeus Project, 1209 Cornwell Ave., Bellingham. 7:00-9:00pm. Admission is free, with donations to The Amadeus Project appreciated. Adults only, please!

Question*

2011 Merit Award

By Mary Lucas

Question

I wonder
If in that magical moment
     when our eyes first met
     and we KNEW,
If instead of marrying for life
     one of us had blinked and looked away,
Would we be here tonight
With the flickering blue screen
     and TV lives more intimate
     than our own?

*Copyright 2011 by Mary Lucas. Placard design by Egress Studio.

How to Stay

Thanks to BTV10, you can now see and hear 2010 contest award winner Jo Ann Heydron reading her winning poem, How to Stay, which can also be read here.

calling all (romantic) (Whatcom County) poets!

For the third year in a row, The Bellingham Herald will run love poems written by Whatcom County residents in honor of Valentine’s Day.

Selected entries will run in the Feb. 14 Herald (Valentine’s Day), and all accepted entries will run online at TheBellinghamHerald.com.

Poems can be e-mailed to dean.kahn@bellinghamherald.com; mailed to “Valentine’s Day poems,” The Bellingham Herald, 1155 N. State St., Bellingham, WA 98225; or hand-delivered to the Herald business office.

Please include your name, age and town of residence. Also, include your phone number, in case questions arise. The deadline to submit a poem is Feb. 7. For details, call Dean Kahn, 715-2291.

How to Stay*

By Jo Ann Heydron
2010 Merit Award

*Copyright 2010 by Jo Ann Heydron. This poem, which can also be read here, appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Wife of a Fisherman*

2009 Merit Award
By Niel Pfundt

Do you see that lady? At the end of the dock
In the dark, in the rain; wind tossing her hair?

Do you see how she paces? One way then the other
Stops to look; stares into night, wet jacket flying?

She is the wife of a fisherman and knows that a night,
One like this, dark and dirty, makes the water mean.

She’s been out there too, she knows the sounds,
The constant motion, water, boat, everything aboard.

In the dark rain-thick air, out on the black water
A dim light appears, fades, disappears, shows again.

In a flying cloud of spray, the faint shadow of a hull
Twists in the sea, defined by red and green sidelights.

Rounds the breakwater as men on deck lower fenders
Call out cheerfully; toss lines up to the dock.

The fisherman’s wife unclasps praying hands
Takes a line, drops the eye neatly over an iron cleat.

*Copyright 2009 by Niel Pfundt. This poem appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Our Twenty-Sixth Winter*

2008 Merit Award
By Nelle McClenahan

I love you as you hang the storms against
          our twenty-sixth winter.

I work nearby … washing each large pane
          and steadying the ladder
as you climb to second-story bedrooms.

We laugh
when the glass cracks …
not once, but twice …
which means two trips to the hardware store.

I don’t blame you for swearing out loud …
but you laugh too.

Looking upward as I toss a tool
near enough for you to catch it,
I think your white hair
          and soiled red jacket are beautiful
against the autumn sky.

Our house will be snug and safe
against the elements
and unknown forces
which might interfere
          with our twenty-sixth winter
of loving each other.

*Copyright 2008 by Nelle McClenahan. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Heart Song*

2009 Merit Award
By Taylor Knutson, 8th grade

A young heart, flying through the winds of life.
The only thing keeping it from falling are
Love, hope, curiosity,
And imagination.
On a mission to explore every
Object and idea,
Every feeling and dream,
The heart soars without skipping a single beat.
The amount of faith and bravery the heart has
Keeps it on top of the world.
When it is above the ground all that
Is heard is the calm, steady beat of
Love, hope, curiosity,
And imagination
Being pumped through its veins.
The heart yearns for
Passion and trust.
Longing to be pure and just.
All that is needed is patience and determination.
Love, hope,
Curiosity, and imagination
Carry the young heart higher than any bird or plane
Ever could.

*Copyright 2009 by Taylor Knutson. This poem appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

We Walk Together*

by Sue C. Boynton

And so one day
We fell in step.
It mattered not that each of us
Had traveled quite a way,
Or that the hour was rather late.
It just seemed very good
To walk together.

I think it seemed to each of us
A sweet surprise,
An unexpected joy,
To know such deep and quiet peace
With one another.

Seemed strange that out of those
Who through the years
Had crossed our paths,
In this, life’s richest afternoon,
We who had almost strangers been,
Were brought together.

Draw closer, friend,
And place your hand in mine.
And let me see about your eyes
That merry, crinkly smile
Which I have grown to prize.

        L’envoi

It may grow late, it may grow very late.
I shall not see the shadows
Only stars,
If we keep step
Together.

*This poem is included in Heart on My Sleeve, a collection of poems by Sue C. Boynton, published by the Whatcom County Historical Society, 1980.

Love—*

By Kristi Felbinger
2008 Merit Award

looks like
water color splashed on paper,
just two cows in a field,
cold hands.
sounds like
a dog in the bushes at midnight,
the pop of kelp under-toe
heart beat.
smells like
hollowed out redwood trees,
two kinds of hairspray,
onion breath.

*Copyright 2008 by Kristi Felbinger. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.