The theme of the 2017 White Mice Poetry Contest, \u201cHarbor,\u201d was selected to coincide with the twentieth conference of the International Lawrence Durrell Society to be held in Chicago on July 4-7, 2018.\u00a0 A special reading of the prize-winning poems will be held during a poetry event on July 5 at the Poetry Foundation.<\/p>\n
The word \u201charbor\u201d and its related words, \u201cport,\u201d \u201ccove,\u201d \u201chaven,\u201d among others, connotes arrival, departure, and safety.\u00a0 In the case of Chicago, one thinks immediately of cultural and social amenities along Lake Share Drive not far from DuSable Harbor like Navy Pier, the Chicago Yacht Club, and further along, Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium.\u00a0 The harbor in the Windy City not only witnesses the arrival and departure of countless watercraft but also opens toward the Chicago River, which winds into the heart of the glittering, world-famous modern architecture.<\/p>\n
But the concept of \u201charbor\u201d also resonates deeply on the psychic level, in our experience and understanding of transit, encounter, and the desire for security.\u00a0 Harbors often remain elusive, barely visible or just out of reach, promising the safety of land and solid ground.\u00a0 They occupy that liminal space between water, with its frequent turbulence, uncertainty, and even threat, and land, with its comforting illusion of permanence and stability.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, the poems submitted to this year\u2019s contest explore the many associations in a variety of moods and styles. Malcolm Miller\u2019s first prize-winning \u201cI Remember\u201d counterpoises childhood innocence of a boy swimming with a more ominous awareness of adult suffering and perhaps even environmental loss.\u00a0 Rachel Michaud\u2019s second prize-winning \u201cThe Leaky Boat\u201d focuses instead on a group struggling to get a dysfunctional craft to shore and the desire to forget.\u00a0 Paul Jones\u2019s witty, third prize-winning \u201cShe Sails\u201d plays on our common feminization of ships to explore male-female relations and frequent mismatches in desire between the sexes.<\/p>\n
The two poems selected by our judges for honorable mention likewise range in style and mood.\u00a0 Katharyn Howd Machan\u2019s sonnet, \u201cLand,\u201d anatomizes the life of a failed dreamer, who drinks and \u201cwanders on the shoreline,\u201d gathering from his meager life a collection of small, make-shift \u201csouvenirs.\u201d\u00a0 Nancy Cook\u2019s \u201cWaiting for the Tsunami\u201d depicts the \u201ctsunami\u201d of declining old age, linked imaginatively to the speaker\u2019s experience of an earlier tsunami caused by \u201can Alaskan quake.\u201d<\/p>\n
With every contest I am pleased and impressed by the rich diversity of imagery, thought, and emotive power.\u00a0 Having selected this year\u2019s theme of \u201cHarbor,\u201d I worried that the topic might prove too narrow to engage a sufficient number of entries. I needn\u2019t have.\u00a0 The longing implied by this theme resonated deeply in poets from across the country.\u00a0 These poems testify to our need to find a haven in a time of seemingly unending social turbulence.<\/p>\n
David Radavich<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n I remember during heat waves Malcolm Miller<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malcolm Miller published two collections of poetry with Tundra Press in Montreal.\u00a0 A genuine eccentric, sometimes homeless, sometimes living in public housing, he led a fiercely independent life.\u00a0 His story is told in a documentary film, Unburying Malcolm Miller<\/em> (2017), by Kevin Carey and Mark Hillringhouse.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n One bails to keep the boat afloat. We do not want to face The shore! The shore! We want so much to step on sand, Rachel Michaud<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rachel Michaud is a prize-winning poet and essayist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post<\/em>, Hartford Courant<\/em>, and numerous literary journals.\u00a0 She was raised in Hartford and Elmwood, Connecticut and educated at Bennington College and the State University at Albany.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n This She saw herself a ship– Along an irregular coast. Him rocky, Him overage. Him staid, Him could not decide, \u201cNo Hims,\u201d the She sighed, \u201cfor me\u201d Paul Jones<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Jones\u2019 first chapbook, What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common<\/em>, was a North Carolina Writers\u2019 Network publication winner.\u00a0 He has published reviews widely and is a contributing editor to the Heath Anthology of American Literature<\/em>.\u00a0 He is a professor at the University of North Carolina\u2019s School of Information Science.<\/p>\nFirst Prize<\/h2>\n
I Remember<\/h3>\n
\nwhen I was a boy we were allowed
\nto go down at midnight
\nto the harbor to swim
\nin the black cold water that seemed
\nalive with salt and starscoming home barefoot with a big
\ntowel over my shoulders I stopped
\nunder the immense sky and stood there
\nfeeling the strange joy
\nwe can unfortunately live without<\/p>\n
\nSecond Prize<\/h2>\n
The Leaky Boat<\/h3>\n
\nThe other rows. We\u2019re sorry
\nwe trusted a blue sky. We trusted
\njoy to hold us. We told
\nno one where we were going.
\nDamn, the water\u2019s winning.<\/p>\n
\neach other, barely speak.
\nWho knew our hopes
\nwould leak like paper boats?
\nWho knew how fear and shame
\ncould change us?<\/p>\n
\nOne bails. One rows.
\nWe work as we have never
\nworked, like a machine.
\nThe fuel is we refuse
\nto drown in this poor boat together.<\/p>\n
\npart, and forget each other<\/p>\n
\nThird Prize<\/h2>\n
She Sails<\/h3>\n
\nTall rig, well set, sea tossed,
\npirate boat bent on pillage–
\nAnd every Him a harbor<\/p>\n
\nNo entirely safe moorage,
\nNo Him to whom to be tied.
\nThis Him shallow, that a bore.<\/p>\n
\nThis Him subject to freak tides,
\nThat Him\u2019s natives are hostile,
\nHim lacked a job, Him ardor.<\/p>\n
\nHim too virile, Him futile,
\nHim too salty, Him too sweet.
\nEach Him She found disordered.<\/p>\n
\nDisharbored, she kept at sea.<\/p>\n
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