{"id":5871,"date":"2021-09-03T11:05:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T18:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/?p=5871"},"modified":"2022-04-20T16:15:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T23:15:58","slug":"winner-of-2021-angela-consolo-mankiewicz-poetry-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/winner-of-2021-angela-consolo-mankiewicz-poetry-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Winner of 2021 Angela Consolo Mankiewicz Poetry Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

On behalf of Lummox Productions, the estate of Richard Mankiewicz and our judge B.J. Buckley, I extend my congratulations to\u00a0JOHN B. LEE — THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S ANGELA CONSOLO MANKIEWICZ POETRY PRIZE OF $1000.00<\/h3>\n

John B. Lee’s Winning Poem<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tip<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

my first dog Tip died in the dark
\nlying alone on the floor at the barn
\nhis body gone hard
\nin the cold of the night
\nlike a branch that broke off at the graft
\nand then broke again
\nas it fell to the earth
\nwhere he lay in the curl of himself
\namong chop sacks and
\nsnap-string hay
\nin the fragrance of silage
\nof rolled oats and molasses
\nand wheat straw
\nshook of its dust
\nand whitewash rubbed
\nfrom the rock as with each white stone
\nyou might think of the full moon
\ncoated in mist
\nand the cruel gods
\nbrought the news to the house
\nin the snow
\nblown in at the door
\nand oh my slow-to-wake heart
\nyou\u2019d think it might
\nbe inured to death
\nand dying
\naccustomed as I was by then
\nto failing runts and scouring calves
\nand distempered cats
\ntheir eyes sewn shut
\nby the green weep of crusted suppuration
\nbut in truth
\nI suffered every loss<\/p>\n

even that of the old ewe
\nher last fleece
\ntattered at her shoulder
\nlike the torn-away sleeve
\nof a mendicant\u2019s coat
\neven she
\nwho snuffled to breathe
\nthe yellow snooze
\nworming her nostril
\nand not-at-all beautiful
\ncome and go
\nwith an effluent
\nflux of her lungs<\/p>\n

her lamb twins leaping
\nas I might leap
\nin the milk-breath of morning
\nto think of my mother
\nas young
\nand my first dog
\na fat pup calling joy out of\u00a0sorrow
\nand sorrow from joy
\n\u00a9 John B. Lee<\/p>\n

\n

\u2028\u2028Thoughts on Tip from BJ Buckley\u00a0(judge)<\/strong>
\nThis deceptively “simple” poem is actually an amazing and skillful tour-de-force of image, form and the music of spoken\u00a0Amer-Canadian English. Although devoid of capital letters and punctuation, it is a single, beautifully phrased, complex sentence, divided by two stanza breaks into three uneven “thirds”. Yet it reminded me of nothing so much as a sonnet, because it performs, much as a sonnet does, the presentation and development of an event\/idea\/emotion from the intimate and particular to the universal.<\/p>\n

As it unfolds from the author’s memory of the death of their first dog, the writer’s life as a farmer is revealed \u2013 dealing with death is a constant of that hard occupation — and one might anticipate a stoicism in the face of that; but rather the author suffers even at the death of an old ewe (whose described ailments echo with incredible subtlety the devastation of COVID on human lungs) — and then in a marvelous turn in the last stanza, they give us her leaping twin lambs and themself as a child, their mother young, their dog a pup again, the life-long mortal seesaw of sorrow and joy.<\/p>\n

I must also point out the seeming effortlessness of the narrative flow (which we all know is NEVER effortless), and the precise and vivid images — the dog’s death as being like a branch “broken off at the graft” — dog and child part of one body, now severed — the “snap string hay” the ewe’s “last fleece\/ tattered at her shoulder\/ like the torn-away sleeve\/ of a mendicant’s coat”.<\/p>\n

\n

ACM Honorable Mentions<\/strong>
\nEric Dickey\u00a0– (for these 3\u00a0poems); James River; James Smith; James Byrd, Jr
\nEileen Hale\u00a0– Beyond the Trapdoor
\nClarinda Harriss\u00a0– GRIEF LITANY, IN COMMON MEASURE
\nDiane Klammer\u00a0– What a Fisherman Said at Sawhill Ponds
\nEllaraine Lockie\u00a0–\u00a0Eavesdropping on the Stars
\nJohn Macker\u00a0– Jazz on a Summer\u2019s Day
\nWendy Rainey\u00a0– (for 2 poems); Sweaters of the Dead; Astro Turf
\nPatti Scruggs\u00a0– Degas\u2019 Bathers
\nJudith Skillman\u00a0– The Cantor
\nDawn Senior Trask\u00a0– You Horses:\u00a0 Paycheck<\/p>\n

Judge\u2019s Statement Regarding the Honorable Mentions<\/strong>
\nFor the second year in a row I have had the great pleasure of judging the ACM Poetry Contest. Rather than multiple “places”, this year the prize went to a single poem, and because of that, I took my task with especial seriousness.\u00a0 The high quality of this year’s entries made that task difficult in the extreme, but there was, at the end, a shining star.<\/p>\n

It was almost as difficult to select the 10 poets and their work for Honorable Mentions, because of the tremendous variety of styles and forms, and the breadth of feeling and subject matter the entrants brought to the page during this unusual, painful, complex, and difficult year. I think contest entrants take an amazing risk in sending off their most deeply felt and carefully crafted work to a complete stranger; I am humbled by the hundreds of poems I have been privileged to read. And I think such entrants always have questions about the process by which winning poems are selected. So I want to share my process.<\/p>\n

I read every poem blind (which means no names were attached), the entire group of nearly 300 poems, all the way through, beginning to end, five times. The first time through I read purely for pleasure, as I would any collection of poems, enjoying the wide scope such a diverse group of writing offered. Then I got to work with more careful, close, and deliberate readings. At that point I made a difficult initial division into two groups, one from which I would choose the winner and honorable mentions.<\/p>\n

I then went through that multiple reading process again, eventually putting aside about 30 poems, from which I made my final choices. My criteria throughout the entire process was, first and foremost, the quality of the craft with which the poet presented the content to the reader, as well as the clarity with which the writer’s intentions were executed. By the time I had the final 30, every poem rated high in that regard. From then on I read for exceptional language, vivid image, for surprise and beauty, for how well the individual experience described in the poem resonated beyond the individual to the wider human condition. In the very end, I picked the poems that touched me most deeply, knowing that another person might have been touched differently, or by different work, because our lives and experiences are all different.\u00a0 Please know that I honor all of you who entered for your persistence, your dedication, for putting pen (or keyboard) to paper, for taking the tremendous risk of committing grief and fear and anger and death and illness and love and joy and celebration to paper, and putting it OUT THERE into the world. Please don’t stop.\u2028\u2028Publisher’s note\u00a0— It’s been a pleasure working with BJ; her intuition and suggestions have helped make this a wonderful experience! This year’s contest has been the most successful one ever! I hope this trend will continue. Be on the look out for next year’s contest…\u00a0RD Armstrong<\/p>\n

\n

Patrons of the Lummox Press
\n<\/strong>Chris Y.,\u00a0Georgia C.,\u00a0Michael M.,\u00a0Dr. Brod, the Estate of Angela C. Mankiewicz,\u00a0 Vachine, Bill G.,\u00a0Linda A.,\u00a0 Anonymous, HLT, Marty A., Steve K.<\/p>\n

Without them and others like them, it would be almost impossible for this lummox to serve the poetry community.<\/strong>
\nLummox 9 is 8″ x 10″. It’s the last issue (220 page average) featuring the work of about 120 poets; interviews,\u00a0 essays & reviews. Listed at $25, order it from Lummox Press and get free shipping (USA only). Go here to order<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

PAST WINNERS<\/u><\/u><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SUPPORT FREE SPEECH & FREE PRESS!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On behalf of Lummox Productions, the estate of Richard Mankiewicz and our judge B.J. Buckley, I extend my congratulations to JOHN B. LEE \u2014 THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR\u2019S ANGELA CONSOLO MANKIEWICZ POETRY PRIZE OF $1000.00.<\/p>\n

This deceptively “simple” poem is actually an amazing and skillful tour-de-force of image, form and the music of spoken\u00a0Amer-Canadian English. Although devoid of capital letters and punctuation, it is a single, beautifully phrased, complex sentence, divided by two stanza breaks into three uneven “thirds”. Yet it reminded me of nothing so much as a sonnet, because it performs, much as a sonnet does, the presentation and development of an event\/idea\/emotion from the intimate and particular to the universal.<\/p>\n

As it unfolds from the author’s memory of the death of their first dog, the writer’s life as a farmer is revealed \u2013 dealing with death is a constant of that hard occupation — and one might anticipate a stoicism in the face of that; but rather the author suffers even at the death of an old ewe (whose described ailments echo with incredible subtlety the devastation of COVID on human lungs) — and then in a marvelous turn in the last stanza, they give us her leaping twin lambs and themself as a child, their mother young, their dog a pup again, the life-long mortal seesaw of sorrow and joy.<\/p>\n

I must also point out the seeming effortlessness of the narrative flow (which we all know is NEVER effortless), and the precise and vivid images — the dog’s death as being like a branch “broken off at the graft” — dog and child part of one body, now severed — the “snap string hay” the ewe’s “last fleece\/ tattered at her shoulder\/ like the torn-away sleeve\/ of a mendicant’s coat”. \u2014 B.J. Buckley (Contest Judge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[725],"tags":[132,743,748,744,742,745,741,751,740,162,68,115,747,749,750,735,746,739],"class_list":["post-5871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-bj-buckley","tag-clarinda-harriss","tag-dawn-senior-trask","tag-diane-klammer","tag-eileen-hale","tag-ellaraine-lockie","tag-eric-dickey","tag-independent-publisher-poetry","tag-john-b-lee-winner-2021-poetry-contest","tag-john-macker","tag-judith-skillman","tag-lummox-press","tag-patti-scruggs","tag-poetry-contest-los-angeles","tag-poets-los-angeles","tag-steve-armstrong","tag-wendy-rainey","tag-winner-2021-angela-console-mankiewicz-poetry-price-john-b-lee"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6358,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions\/6358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}