The Reporter recently launched its first-ever fall poetry contest with the theme “autumn.” Thank you to the poets who together submitted nearly 100 poems.
The panelist of judges for the contest included Reporter editor Carrie Rodriguez, staff writers Allison DeAngelis and Shaun Scott, and Mercer Island Reporter staff writer Katie Metzger.
Congratulations to the following winners in the adult category: First place goes to Bellevue resident Heather Lee for her poem, “October Blackberries”; second place goes to Deb Grover, of Bellevue, for her poem “I am From Fall”; and third place goes to Jane Davis Carpenter, of Bellevue, for “Autumn Harvest.”
In the kids category (ages 9-15), congratulations to the following winners: Bellevue resident Anirudh Prakash, age 15; second place goes to Haydn Dandy, a Bennett Elementary School fifth-grader; and third place goes to Bellevue resident Oren Kallay, age 9.
The Reporter also chose poems to receive honorable mentions.
Here are the winning selections:
First place: ‘October Blackberries’
The blackberries grow scarce,
acorns crackle under foot,
and shadows like molasses spread,
dark as wings of gangster crows –
a murder, they call them –
laying claim to yellow grass,
driving field mice swiftly down
to quiver in their dens.
And what now sends a shiver
slithering briskly down my spine?
A ticking clock, a tear unshed,
a grasp at times gone by?
The rain, or something colder?
Death is not so very grave,
says Jack-o-Lantern’s grin.
When the wolf wind howls,
do not fear it – hear it:
Open wide your arms, your hands,
your fingers and your soul.
Let go, that you may grow.
Do not speak now; listen.
The sky lays down the sun –
a dazzling transition.
The trees send off their children –
there’s laughter in the leaves
as they’re finally set free.
I pluck one last blackberry,
paying the blood price,
and shed my skin.
Heather Lee, age 41
Second place: ‘I am from Fall’
I am from a red tree blazing the way
From the sound of brittle leaves beneath my slippered boots as I walk along a damp pathway
From the taste of comfort in my mug of steaming sweetness and from my bowl of simmering savory
From the mountains
The sparkle of the snow pack
The squeak of the frozen under my skis
I am from the wind
The crispness of the pink and orange and grey sky that burrows under the early sunset
I am from the waves sending welcome goosebumps through my toes as splash finds my feet on the front of a sailboat
From rooted tradition and new opportunities
From collective and optimistic prospectives hoping to make the word a better place
I am from my mother, my father, my aunts, uncles and cousins and the moments of stillness found with them that invite reflection and contemplation
I am from my children and my spouse and their optimism and inquisitiveness
I am from new beginnings that come with age and wisdom and transition
Deb Grover, age 40
Third place: ‘Autumn Harvest’
This stateliness no stranger to me now,
The path I take both decorous and safe,
I dance again (my heart remembers how)
If dignity should bind too tight or chafe.
I love this season: its defiant pace
Which matches mine, somewhat, and for its leaves
Afire with color one last time, to race
The coming of first frost my heart believes
Will never be. [My heart believes the lies
it likes, unhampered by the need for fact!]
From love’s equations, the heart multiplies;
From mere experience, it must subtract.
The heart remembers differently, I find,
From all the convolutions of the mind.
Jane Davis Carpenter, age 90
First place, kids: ‘Autumn Crawl to Finish’
Creepy crawlies scatter under the rug of fallen colored leaves
Lazy children cuddle under the blanket, covered up to sleeves
Autumn starts, mother nature’s most beautiful face, as if, she silently grieves
She is kind, wind has no loot-permit, but squirrels gather, mischievous thieves
Autumn is when the sun shines on trees as if rainbow worked less
Like god wants to play Pollock, spray paint, scatter, make a color mess
Arrange the pattern, shapes and sizes of leaves, design a pretty dress
Who would care to clean up? of course, leaf blower is under constant stress
When wind decides to sing and dance, plants can’t stop the shake
thunder, lightning, storms, drains run full, floods could take a break
Roads turn into rivers, walker run, drivers blame on their new headache
Occasionally, sky brightens up, into all white. Wait, is that a snowflake??
Anirudh Prakash, age 15
Second place, kids: ‘Autumn’
In the cold autumn
With my friends
We play in the crispy leaves.
Leaf forts
Leaf fights
Leaf rain
And the leaf king.
A stack of blazing auburn leaves
The leaf king is.
When the crisp and icy wind carried it away
Just to be built again
And again.
Haydn Dandy, age 10
Third place, kids: ‘Autumn on Phantom Lake’
Once lightly floating, now slowly sinking
Lily pads fade from Seahawk green to burnt yellow.
The thick carpet of lily leaves is thinning
And ripples now can stretch freely in the upsideodown sky.
One lonely mallard glides across the glassy lake
And leaves a scribbled V behind
Just like the V the geese shape
In the bright blue sky
As summer says goodbye.
In the clear morning light
My favorite tall tree gleams
Like a red-tipped rocket popsicle times 2
Across the still and quiet lake.
Tiny bright white and black buffleheads
Return from who knows where
To play, dive and pop up again
In their winter home.
Soon the waterlilies
Will sleep out of sight
Waiting for a warm spring sun
To wake them.
Oren Kallay, age 9
Honorable mention: ‘Autumn Love’
It’s still dark at seven a.m.
And dark again by five.
Daylight squeezed smaller
And after the clock falls back
You don’t get home
For a daylight dinner.
Such a lot of dark time still
Before the winter solstice.
We need a Beltane fire
To kindle light in our hearts,
To carry us through the long cold,
Until the clock springs ahead.
Still there’s a sort of privacy in gray days;
A new warmth beneath the blanket.
Or does it only seem so because
The skin on your face feels cool?
In the long blue nights, we snuggle
So close that your eyes grow big
And cross as our noses touch.
We nestle together in our winter cocoon,
Like mice hibernating in a bureau drawer,
Who wait until spring warms the air
And wakes the long night sleepers.
Jessie Irene Fernandes, age 95
Honorable mention: ‘Haiku poem #1’
Looked up to see geese
Flying in V formation
Autumn on the wing.
Pat Buckley, age 60-plus
Honorable mention: ‘When the Funnies Were Green’
Every Ohio year,
right after the corn was cut,
the Akron Beacon Journal
Times Press printed Dick Tracy
and all the rest
on grass-green pages.
That was dad’s signal
to start reading to us;
we kept him at it
right through Christmas.
The snow gleamed then,
like diamond dust sparkling
under a Van Gogh sun.
In the evening, Ronald Colman read
“A Christmas Carol.” Later,
our steepled fingers
on the bed while we kneeled,
prayed for bikes
and a Lionel train.
That was way back
when the funnies were green.
David F. Plummer
Honorable mention: ‘Autumn’
The hours of the days are getting shorter, the time is leaving.
The leaves slowly begin to falter, the green is leaving.
The once-bright sun becomes a shirker, the warmth is leaving.
The sweet chirps in the air are quieter, the birds are leaving.
The people travel from one place to another, the time is leaving.
The maples turn yellow and red, the color is coming.
The dry air becomes fresh and wet, the rain is coming.
The grain reapers are readily set, the harvest is coming.
The hallways at school are filled with tread, the teachers are coming.
The parted friends finally met, the gathering is coming.
Together, we celebrate
Another autumn
Edward Yu, age 11, Odle Middle School sixth-grader
Honorable mention: ‘Autumn’
Autumn is the season of windy weather
When the wind howls through your skin
When you feel your body get goose bumps because it is cold.
Autumn is also a sign that Thanksgiving and Halloween are on their way.
It is also when the turkeys have to run for their lives.
Autumn is the season when leaves change from bright green to crisp brown.
When I think of autumn I also think of raking leaves (sad) but most of all jumping in piles of leaves (fun).
Autumn is fun and chilly.
Heli Chetan Desai, age 10, Bennett Elementary School
