2008 Poetry of Place Winners

I Remember

by Garrett Janzen

I remember the grassy field
Across the street from my front yard
Where I netted garden spiders and toads in the summer.
I remember the white chalky path
That led from the road's dead end
Past the dragon flies' puddle into the cool frost's shade.
I remember the old oak bridge
Over the small winding crick
Finding its way through the mud with the help of my hands.
I remember the high mud walls
Carved by a once great torrent
Roots and rocks jutting from the sides into open air.
I remember the scent of wet grass
The stench of the swampy pone
The dust and the pollen making me sneeze.
I remember glowing pixies at dusk
Floating fireflies in the failing light
No streetlights or headlights, but brilliant moon and stars.
I remember the slime of a leopard frog's back
The burning of peroxide on scraped knees
The feel of pond scum squeezed through your fingers.
I remember the thrill of discovery
A beaver-hewn stick, a possum's jaw
A slug at the water's edge, snails clinging to the rocks.
I remember what it means to find one's home
Among the rocks and trees and living things
To find solace in the sound of rustling leaves high above
To discover someplace as changing and unknowable as yourself
To have a place become a part of your soul
That stays with you long after you have stepped back out into the sunlight.

The Memories I'm Made Of

by Garrett Janzen

I am from a pile of farm magazines
Sitting next to the Marlboro-scented recliner.
I'm from made up songs sang in made up keys,
Often about the magnificence of boxed potatoes.
I am from weekends planned by the radar.
From praising the rain but cursing the storm.
I'm from Motown Mornings,
From the perfume dance and the hair-curling song,
This Little Piggy and 10 Little Indians.
I'm from trips to the grocery store and a
Stop in the toy aisle.
From green beans and canning prayers,
Corn-on-the-cob and homemade pies.
I'm from the boy with the tabooed middle name,
And the other boy who thought he was Dad.
I am from the sheet-made palace under the stairs,
Where John made threats of Mable Able's ghost.
I'm from nights ling under the Christmas tree
With the Nerf war masters,
From "leftover days" and
Stay out of Mom's Hair.
I am from Beavy Chicky Woman and Dorkster Porkster,
Old Spice hugs and "Oh boy!"
I'm from ping-pong and shuffleboard
And the enormous freezing storage room.
I am from awkward holiday dinners
And matching cow print dresses.
I am from Spesh Presh Profesh and
Finally I have a sister.
From the grown-up five-year-old
And the girl who slapped every boy on the playground.
I'm from recesses filled with games of "house,"
When I always had to be the mom.
I'm from the blessed moments when we're all together
And the memories pour from the back of our minds.
Those memories are of the precious people and places
Which defined me, molded me, made me
Who I am today.

Movie Theatre

by Morgan Mallory

The room where tears are shed and laughter is heard.
The home of a screen fifteen feet tall.
Where a cola is left, to be spilled on the floor.
Lined with those creaky, lumpy seats.
The buzz of the projector fills the room.
I am a place where only your dad could fall asleep.
I always overhear every shush, and kernel pop.
In the front of the room, there is a case filled with caramel candies and taffy galore.
I am the eerie darkness until all is over, or as some people would say,
The end

Clearing

by Ciara McCormack

The deer had been there,
Too close to the music for comfort
And left the grass bent
As though the fairies had danced there.
There, too, had been the drunkard
Who sat on the broken stump and dropped
the empty bottle as he staggered away,
a green teardrop frozen among the grass.

If you thought it was flat

by Ciara McCormack

Those who say Nebraska is flat
Must never have been here,
Or they have come from Colorado, straight
from the Rockies
with the notion that anything less majestic
is bluntly uninspiring.
But Nebraska isn't that place.
Nebraska isn't the bland expanse
of nothing for miles.
And perhaps it only come from living
in this last place on earth
that we begin to understand,
(and only after years)
to finally appreciate each curve in the road
each rise in the prairie grass,
each subtle glimmer from the ponds and streams
formed in the heavy rainfall
or hidden in the rows of cottonwoods
that trace their paths.

Abandonment

by Samantha Menard

Twenty years
Since the last rain
The town deserted
Houses in shambles
Without doors or shutters
Rotten, termite infested

Cornfields that once flourished
Have now eroded and blown away
A broken-down tractor
Covered in a bittersweet rust
Sits abandoned and unnoticed

Underneath the lone tire
A blade of grass
Vibrant green
Shoots out, reaching
For the warmth of the sun
Its fate like the others
To shrivel and sink back into the ground

Dirt roads
Cracked and ragged
From years of impoverishment
Covering a soul
Emptied and lifeless
As soon as he walked out the door
Never to return
A shock surges acress the town
Brief but effective
Eradicating anything left over

The sun
A red disc fading away
Sets for the last time
As the lat husk of corn
Flutters across the land
In search of something
Just over the horizon