Poetry Breakfast would like to congratulate the following poets. Though it was difficult for us to choose only six poems to nominate for the Best of the Net Award, we narrowed it down to these:
Birthday Present by Joan McNerney
By the Time I Got to Dublin by Carter Vance
Gray River by Patricia Biela
Jazz Kahuna by Max Reif
Knots by Nate Maye
The Problem with California by Maggie Rosen
Congratulations!
Photo by Benjamin Balazs.
By The Time I Got To Dublin
By the time I got to Dublin,
they swept glass bottles from avenue,
the cars sat sensibly across the round-about,
the clenched fists of ’16, of ’09
faded from view, their names as echoes in
bronze statues, white spray paint.
By the time I got to Brussels,
the city split to three blocks,
clock tower chimes counting past as
hometowns tend to, nothing more;
I came to see chaos, creation,
it was an afternoon.
By the time I got to Prague,
the iron of cross and curtain had been,
the words still about the air from
lips loosened by beer and foreign accents;
no longer the grandiose struggle, the problems
more mundane, parking next to cubist lampposts.
By the time I was home,
a thousand new voices had rung through
my ears and yours, we smiled
a bit less to each other than before;
it was the wisdom of aging,
knowing everything important had happened.
About the Poet:
Carter Vance is a student and aspiring poet originally from Cobourg, Ontario, currently studying in the Social Work program at Algoma University in Sault Ste Marie. His work has appeared in such publications as A Swift Exit, (parenthetical) and the Scarlet Leaf Review. He received an Honourable Mention from Contemporary Verse 2’s Young Buck Poetry Awards in 2014. His work also appears on his personal blog Comment is Welcome (commentiswelcome.blogspot.com).
Poetry Breakfast accepts submissions of poetry and poetry related creative non-fiction year-round. See our Submission Guidelines page for details on submitting your work.
Photo by Skandinavien.
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