By Sharon Waller Knutson
Here’s just a few of Pushcart and Best of the Net nominees over the years. I chose my favorite poem from each poet who sent me poems.
Fran Abrams
Pushcart nominated by Gargoyle in 2023
Fran Abrams – Gargoyle Magazine
Rose Mary Boehm
Pushcart nominated by Shark Reef
There is no sleep, just deep exhaustion.
And as I probe the mists of life I am surprised
by finding unexpected riches.
Like Pharaoh, I have been well endowed
with all the preciousness I need
for an eternal death time and beyond.
A treasure chest filled to the brim
with lasting gifts of boundless value
has sprung its lid, its contents
spilled into my memories.
Just now I heard the nightingale which sang
one night for me and my new love
and filled my heart until it broke
from too much beauty, too much wonder.
A tango wafts from somewhere,
a tender touch floats into vision,
shy as a new bride.
Twelve pairs of hands hold ropes to let a coffin
slide slowly into newly wounded earth;
a solitary bagpipe plays a sad lament.
I fill with happiness because I understand.
Oh, over there – a naked fiddler
sits lotus on a sideboard in the room
of a hotel that has seen better days.
A bar of Bach or two…
Lorraine Caputo
https://dashboardhorus.blogspot.com/2022/05/lorraine-caputos-poem-fiesta-plains.html
Judith Waller Carroll
Best of the Net nominated by Umbrella in 2010
Leaving Montana
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place . . .
—T. S. Eliot
Last night a flood of starlight
cast a ghostly glow on the sunflowers,
the raspberry canes, the shadowy
pines at the edge of the yard. If we listened hard,
we could hear the far-off bugle of the elk
that spent last summer down by the draw.
This morning every leaf on the cottonwoods
is afire—gold, orange, magenta,
and a few feathery clouds barely move
above the house, the pond, the field where the kids
played flashlight tag that first winter,
snow glazing their hair like fairy dust.
There are so many reasons to go,
but try telling that to the asters, reaching
like arms as we pull out of the driveway,
or the squirrel questioning us with his tail
as he gathers acorns by the Saunders’ oak.
Even the black bear has come down from the hills
to leave his berry-rich opinion at the end of the lane.
We turn left on Ricketts Road for the last time,
cross the silver bridge, and just beyond the first bend
we finally see the moose that’s been spotted
where the river runs along Main Street,
makes a sharp right turn, heads down
toward Highway 93 and flows out of town.
Luanne Castle
Best of the Net nomination in 2019 by Nine Muses Poetry.
Tuesday Afternoon at Magpie’s Grill
Flickering afternoon light slatted and parsed.
At 3PM, the booths empty except for me
and my notebook.
Would I notice if not for my companion,
my need to recognize and remember?
Without a record, will I hear the ice crashing
into the sink, the Dodger talk at the bar
at the end of the room under the Miller Lite
neon confident and beckoning?
My mother used to say about me,
In one ear and out the other, as if the words
flowed through me without stopping,
without truly entering me, leaving little
effect, as if I had no memory
of all the little parental transgressions.
Why am I not under the sycamore I spot
through the blinds in this Tuesday sunshine
listening to the very song with the shady tree?
What have I done with my life? When
I should have written a poem, I didn’t.
When I did, I didn’t get it quite right.
How can a poem do so many things:
wishing for the shade and thirsty for a beer,
feeling an urge to move my pen and noting
the tiny feet and brush of cuticle,
the solitary fly on my bare arm, while
imagining the chattering of the birds that swoop
from sycamore to jacaranda as if the parking lot
and dumpsters and broken bottles don’t exist.
No matter what I notice,
no matter what I record, I will never
capture the ease of wind-filled wings,
tail feathers a translucent backlit fan,
as my hollow bones jettison the detritus
to fly upward against the source
Joe Cottonwood
Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated by Sheila Na Gig
Wet Nurse
Stuff: Wet Nurse (stuffnotstuffy.blogspot.com)
Barbara Crooker
Pushcart Prize nominated by an anonymous editor from the Pushcart Press in 1989
45s, LPs
My autistic son listens to the oldies,
digs that old time rock 'n roll rhythm & blues.
My husband says it's like our teen years
are hanging out in his room, coming from the radio—
When the night is dark, and the land is far
and the moon is the only light you see—
rolling up the sleeves of their black tee shirts,
collapsing on the bed in a froth of petticoats,
what's left on the beach when a wave
subsides and the tide begins to ebb,
plants a kiss on the shore, then rolls
out to sea, and the sea is very still once more.
Baby oil and iodine shine on our arms
and legs, lemon juice in our hair,
plastic transistor radios tuned to The Top Ten.
Get outta that kitchen and rattle them pots 'n pans.
What misfired neurons cause him to shake
and fidget his fingers before his eyes,
call out in class when the teacher's talking,
be out of synch with everyone else?
Up on the roof it's peaceful
as can be, and there the world below
can't bother me. When we're gone, what then?
slipping in a jukebox for three plays,
slow songs you could dance to all night long?
Pushcart nominated by Poetry South 2022
What the Salt Meant
“That night when the angels came to Lot, [his wife was] going to all her neighbors and saying to them, give me salt, because we have guests…Therefore ‘she became a pillar of salt.’" --Bereishit Rabbah.51:5
Her sin, after all, was not
that her rheumy eyes travelled back,
swollen with hope that her daughters’
singed shadows might rise from the blaze
of collapsing skyline. It was that Lot’s wife
warned her neighbors. She would become
the woman who watched the whip burn
across another’s back, then spread
the word one dark night to slip
inside the barn, hide breathless
beneath the hay while the slave catchers
followed a false scent. The woman
who witnessed yellow stars
sewn on neighbors’ jackets,
and went to borrow a cup of sugar,
perhaps a bit of salt, whispering
what she had heard in town about
the coming cattle cars. The woman
who typed government reports
no one imagined
she understood, then waited
near the factory gate at closing time,
la migra viene, don’t go
to work tomorrow. It wasn’t
what she chose to face
that raised the angels’ outrage,
fearing the flames would heat
her mind and melt
her heart. What the salt meant
to silence was her voice.
Pushcart nominated by Kelsay Press from Lyrical Years
Apostrophe
One more child lies silent in my
wife’s womb, no pulse, no moving
limbs, nothing left to say, as once
again your milligrams pull
down my eyelids--damming
the salty river of my needs.
I was sure the muscles of
my heart were strong enough to
support us all. But the roulette
wheel came up double zero,
and there you lay—a withered fruit
on the sonogram screen,
unsprouted. My teeth clacked when
standing just outside the door
someone asked “How ya doin?”
No sound passed my lips, as
the steady rain began to fall
on my grey-streaked, chestnut hair,
then my shirt, hat forgotten,
still grasped in my taut, right hand
Pushcart nominated in 2009 by OPW Fredericks Touch: The Journal of Healing and 2011 by Quill and Parchment
Final Night
When a child dies in Niger,
the family wraps him up
and allows the mother to sleep
with him all night.
The curve of her arm
around the still bundle
forms the last smile
she can give him.
He is hers
during this time for sleeping,
a few hours for the months
he grew in her belly,
one night for the years
crouched beside him
as he played by the fire.
Her thighs remember
relief when he slid into life;
her breasts remember
calm as he took her milk.
She waits until dawn to weep
so her tears will be fresh
as they sink into the wrappings,
an offering of water
and salt to nourish him
on his next journey.
Pushcart nominated by Shark Reef om 2021
"Captain Frank"
http://sharkreef.org/2021/01/page/3/
Best of the Net nomination in 2023 by The Five-Two
The Devil Has Gone Home
-Spectator at the execution of Paul Ezra Rhodes
Banks of black clouds
swirl like smoke
in a ghostly sky
as I leave Albertson’s
with a bottle of water
and organic bread
baked with grains and seeds.
For some strange reason
I wonder as I walk
across the parking lot
if a burly stranger high
on meth will be waiting
in my car and put a gun
to my head and force
me to drive him to the bank
and then rape and shoot me
nine times and leave me dead
in a field outside of town
like he did the pregnant
school teacher in 1987.
Then I remember the triple
murderer was put down
like a rabid pit bull
in a Boise prison ten years ago.
I relax and take a swig of water
and eat a slice of bread.
Best of the Net nomination by Verdad
,"The Fedora," Verdad 31 (Fall, 2021).
http://www.verdadmagazine.org/vol31/poetry/kronenfeld.html
Laurie Kuntz
Pushcart Prize winner 2024 and nominated for both Pushcart and Best of the Net by Sparks of Calliope
2024: Sparks of Calliope-My Father Remembers
https://sparksofcalliope.com/2024/05/10/and-the-winner-is/
Joan Leotta
Pushcart nominated by Ekphrastic Review
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/magrittes-apple-explains-it-all-by-joan-leotta
Lori Levy
Best of the Net nominated in February, 2021, by Bureau of Complaint, a literary magazine for the unsatisfied.
The Art of Complaint
https://bureauofcomplaint.com/2021/02/08/complaint-15-0/
Pushcart Prize nomination by Chjron Review
Sound Effects
The pre-teen boy is a master
of sound effects:
He can make farting noises
with one hand cupped in the crook
of his underarm.
He can mimic the calls of hawk and dove
the rooster on the farm down the road
the coyote howling to the stars
of a desert winter night
He can make the sound of a motorcycle
shifting gears and all the different voices
of all the cars on the road.
He can make the sound of airplanes
and bombs exploding, machine gun fire,
helicopters circling
He can do the squeak of the math teacher's shoes
as he rounds the corner and the imagined crack
of the principal's paddle on his enemy's butt
Someday life will call on him to make the sound
of a father crawling on hands and knees
through the dark muck of life-long prejudice and fear
to tell his gay 17-year-old that he loves him after all
and he will find in his vast store of sounds
the will and the way to say it.
Pushcart Nominated by One Art
Bearing Water
https://oneartpoetry.com/2021/05/09/two-poems-by-betsy-mars/
Pushcart Prize nominated by Star*Line, 2022
"For the Generations to Come," Star*Line, 2022
https://www.sfpoetry.com/sl/issues/starline45.4.html
Pushcart nominated by Harbinger Asylum
How to light up a poem
Poets are troubled minds wandering in search of lighted paths.’
(Original quote mine)
Gently petition the moon for some moonbeams, scatter them gently on the path Implore the sun for a ray or two, scatter deliberately along the way Ask the trees for shadows and silhouettes, brush the path with shades of these Strike up a conversation with the trees, soon there will be a dialogue.
If there’s a stream, brook or a lake nearby, splash some water to purify the air around the path Surely there are squirrels to add their chatter and birds to drop their feathers, in images of noise and Silence Cherries and apples will add their own particular flavor, you do not have to ask permission The apples will fall when they are ready, like the leaves in Autumn.
Flutter and lightly press the wings of the butterflies and the buzz of the bees into the page Catch and hold the colorful darting dragonflies and blooming flowers close to the heart A weed or two is necessary to write reality into the poem, and some darkness for our sorrow.
Search with flashlights into the deepest eyes of your soul, bring in your own inner light Don’t hide it under the bushel, or it will fade like the stars in the early morning The solar lights will light up when the sun is bright, sometimes on grey days too And forget not the wind, that wind that fills the sails To steer the ship to shore.
If after doing all these things you do not manage to light up the poem Don’t worry, when the light wants to come in, It will knock.
Pushcart: nominated by Psaltery and Lyre 2017
A Gospel of Birds
She wasn’t sure about heaven,
but she believed in birds.
On walks she’d stop to watch
a skein of geese, wondered
where they came from,
where they were heading.
They mate for life, she’d say.
Crows do too. And swans
and storks. She must have said that
a hundred times, with a kind of wonder
at the impossibility.
She kept five feeders on the deck,
had a book of backyard birds
to identify newcomers at the feast.
She cried when a neighbor’s cat
killed a mourning dove. They mate
for life too, she said. Listen,
her mate is sad. That’s just their call,
I told her. No, it’s different, she said.
You can tell when birds are sad.
She died a month ago.
I keep the feeders filled.
Best of the Net nominated by Halfway Down the Stairs
https://halfwaydownthestairs.net/2021/03/01/magic-marker-by-shoshauna-shy/
2023 Pushcart Nomination from The Ekphrastic Review
Shared Roots
Hello, old friend.
Has it really been sixty years
since we met?
I’m sorry to see her looking old
and gnarly, but it’s hard to look
her best shivering in the winter wind
without her elegant emerald coat.
As a child, I thought she was old,
like Mama. But trees just grow
more quickly than little girls,
especially this girl – small at every age.
We were almost like sisters, the way
we understood each other without words.
She looks glad to see me again,
seems to bend low for a closer look,
much like how she used to reach out
a sturdy limb to help me up, then cradled
me in her upper branches.
How I welcomed a cool breeze
in Virginia summers, loved tucking
myself into my private hideaway
to think about the world. My coming
of age was a rude shock, when Mama
sent my brother out to saw off
the low limbs.
Today no one seems to be home
in what was once my home,
so I took a chance on trespassing
to see her. I don’t get back often.
Dear friend, thank you
for giving me a giant’s view
of the world. Because of you,
I’ve always tried to look
at everything from different angles.
Best of the Net nominated by Lothlorien in 2023
The Devil's Trumpet of Reality
With dilated pupils we stare into the
fire and imagine caramel melting.
Time slips into a long ago winter
where the ancient scream of the raven
makes us place our hands over our ears
and long for our mothers.
The afternoon has settled into a night as
black as coal and finds us mesmerized
by the headlights of cars that bobble
up and down the winding mountain roads.
We snuggle closer under the cover of
bear pelts to ward off the chill and our
fear of ghosts, the earth vibrating with the
rush of hundreds of marching feet.
A shaft of moonlight silhouettes the men
in kilts on their way to Culloden and a
luminous white horse, pale as death rides
through the veil.
The forest becomes as quiet as a library
until the flapping wings of pterodactyls
rustle the poems from the trees that drink
from the river.
The Cailleach touches her finger to her
lips as songs of mourning play from
somewhere on a radio.
Suddenly, hungry as bears, we look
longingly at our empty bowls of mutton
eaten hours ago. With our now parched
throats, we swallow the devil's trumpet
of reality and slip back into acid laced
dreams.
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