Monday, March 18, 2024

2020 Ode to the ZIP Code: Category 3

Below are the top-scoring poems in this category, which were evaluated by a panel of judges including Jim Ferris, Sandra Rivers-Gill, and Haley Taylor.

To read more poems, return here.


Craig Firsdon
43528
I’ve lived my life
disabled in Holland.
Arrowhead filled fields became malls
and poetry
opened a community in which wheelchairs don’t exist.

Leonard Kress
43551
Raised all my kids
On this street
By the river–and now
Years later, they’ve all drifted
Away.

Andrew Art
43551
At the distribution center,
people and packages
are funneled through long queues.
Scanned, scanned again. Waiting for
delivery.

Laura Blaufuss
43604
The lights aren’t blinding
Skies aren’t scraped
In the shadow of looming legends
(nevertheless)
She’s just as vibrant

Isaac Gonzales
43605
inside the haunted crackhouse
the postpartum screams
halt to a single silent moment
—————
do you hear them now?

Isaac Gonzales
43605
just over the bridge
lives a community
excluded and cast out from society
—————
the sun always rises eastward

Lori Lux
43606
You may see us
dirt full hands
hope takes shape as roots. Sprouts.
(Number of vegetables grown)
Verdant curbside. Life for us all.

George Hayes
43607
Four twenty, birds singing
Gunshot sounds too
Life in the hood not good
0
Mayor says change is going to come

Melissa McKown
43607
A day of work
Evening of play
Summons the nighttime of piercing… silence

The morning refreshes anew city dweller’s dreams

Mary Pat McCarthy
43613
Church bells sway trees
on these streets
awakened at home, we shift sheets
sink
back to sleep

Niris Duran
43613
Surrounded with church bells
The school kids
Buy ice cream and seek thrills
Cigarettes
Abandoned by rebels

Lydia Horvath
43613
Shambly punk shows at
the Cypress bestowed
smoke-soaked clothes, noise-hazed hearing,
and
two bruised shins

Micaela Tore
43614
On the corner of
South Detroit and
Glendale, I parked at Kroger and
cried
for thirty minutes daily.

Lydia Horvath
43614
Remember those simple Southwyck
Saturday night kicks –
lying on carpeted terraces by the
fountain,
Orange Juliuses from Styrofoam?

Claire Morrow
43614
Opportunity fills this air.
I inhale – Deeply.
Everything I love is so near –
Quietly,
I treasure it all.

Joshua Keidan
43615
Snow; soft light glances
over weighted trees.
Who dares disturb the unbroken surface?
Riotous,
we stomp joy into winter.

Charlene Gary
43616
come time for harvest
loud lumbering combines
growl and grumble and wake the
humans
reminding us we are of earth

Mark McMillan
43616
Upon rooftop we lay
Hand in hand
Shooting stars from our tired eyes
Illumination
The world watched our love ignite.

Gwendolyn Pyle
43623
We arrived in April.
I met one
neighbor in July. The rest have
closed doors
and cold shoulders.

Gwendolyn Pyle
43623
I’m on Fox Hill.
There are no
foxes or hills. Only deer and
flat asphalt
greet my lawn.

Amal Abdullah
43623
big-box retail stores
restaurants and plazas
the intersection of neighborhoods and consumerism
birds perched
on cable wires

Ryan Nadolny
48144
I swerve to miss
No bother, a thousand more just like you
Potholes.
All four rims bent
This is Pure Michigan

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