LDS.net is proud to announce the winners of our 2015 poetry contest.
- First place: Robbie Taggart for his poem “Annunciation at Pajaro Dunes.”
- Second place: Jeanelle Averett for her poem “One Ev’ning a Trav’ler.”
- Honorable Mention: Bobby Aldridge for his poem “Waiting for Canaan.”
The winners were chosen through a combination of audience vote, and by two judges Michael Tatum, a senior poet laureate of Idaho, and Tyler Chadwick, editor of the award winning anthology of Mormon poetry Fire in the Pasture.
Taggart’s poem recounts the spiritual aspects of the beginning of life. He explains that the “the seedling soul whose existence this poem proclaims, has ripened into a ten-month-old miracle,” the youngest of what he describes as his five “wild and wonderful” children. He works as a teacher, and describes himself as a “blessed husband and a grateful father.”
Taggart finds his poetry in the common and everyday, what he describes as the “hiding places of the holy.” He believes that one role of poetry is to bring these things to life. “Existence is charged with glory,” he says, “if we have eyes and attentiveness to see and perceive.”
Annunciate at Pajaro Dunes
Silent as a seed in the soil-dark part of her soul,
and filled with the same green hope,
Life stretches and stirs and begins the awakening.
We lie in bed with my hand on her abdomen
in gesture of receiving rather than offering benediction.
Life eddies and swirls around us
in the eyes and touch of small ones
curled and unfurled and brimming with yes.
And this one, for whom ears are still a distant vagueness,
perceives in other ways
and all sounds are one—angel song and ocean waves,
and every language is only possibility.
Jeanelle Averett’s poem “One Ev’ning a Trav’ler” used the metaphor of a church choir to show how the Church can help build up the imperfect. Jeanelle is a long-time poet out of Washington County, Utah, and grandmother to five. She works as a mortgage loan officer.
Bobby Aldridge’s poem “Waiting for Canaan” recounts the events of the pioneer crossing through comparing their experience with the Biblical exodus. Aldridge is a writer and contributing editor of Lunch at Giverny Literary Journal. His first full-length book, An Affair of the Stilled Heart, is forthcoming. Bobby was born in Eritrea, and has lived in Japan, and the United States. He and his wife have eight children.
Congratulations again to all of our finalists, and winners. What do you think about the winning poems? Let us know in the comments below.
