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I'd sent it in, like, a year ago, so I wasn't expecting to see it.
I'd just won the 1st Prize Challenge Award for poetry in the newsletter for "My Wife's Ghost," best poem that made the newsletter for the previous six months. The Award Certificate is hung proudly on my wall next to two other poetry awards. I had a nice dinner out for two on the $40 cash that came along with it!
This month's published entry is entitled "What Do I Want?" It begins like so:
What do I want?
Really, what do I want?
Give me a minute; a day; a year.
Now I’ve thought on it;
It’s getting clearer.
I’ve made it through the silence.
So here goes:
Why not start with stuff that really counts?
That's all I'm giving here. Now here's a problem for you budding poets out there. If the above were the beginning to your poem, what would the rest of it be? Don't peek at mine until you've given a couple day's honest effort and at least a session polishing it. (I recommend not doing the polishing until at least a week after you've put your first inspiration down. Often, I'm still polishing 8 months later--not that whole time, of course.)
Then, and only then, you are allowed to find my version on our club's website (we are South Bay Writers, a branch of California Writers Club), and look for our newsletter page, September 2010, page 8, remember?
The main reason for this article, I haven't really gotten to yet. I read it a year later (tonight, when I picked up my mail), and I like it. Still! Maybe, even better than when I wrote it. Usually, I cringe a little when I see my stuff in print. It's got pace, some worthy goals; it's got a certain energy a lot of my best work has. Not comletely devoid of melodramatic sentimentality, but it's honest, straight forward writing, easily understood.
Enjoy. Or give me helpful feedback. It's nice to know when someone reads something I've created that wasn't anywhere on earth a year ago. --rb
