Pushcart & Contests

Pushcart Nominations 2023

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Origami Poems Project - Pushcart Prize Nominations 2023

Our 6 Nominated Poems

Pushcart 2023 Covers NOV

Icarus

I am tilted,
Arrayed at the end
Of distended queues of logic.
When walking, lightly tread
These gossamer threads
And these splintering fragments
Of my once concrete soul.
Be aware of me, my foundation,
I have no equal,
I am no one’s equal.

●
Karen Pierce Gonzalez © 2023 in 'Sightings from a Star Wheel'

Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s works include True North (Origami Poems Project 2022), Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs (Kelsay Books 2023), and Down River with Li Po (Black Cat Poetry Press 2024). Her writing and assemblage art have appeared in numerous publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Non-Fungible Token - Alexey Deyneko

Non-Fungible Token

If your token is non-fungible,
It, by definition, is:

Non-yeastable,
Non-rustable,
Non-smutable,
Non-mildewble,
Non-moldable,
And non-mushroomable

At the same time.

If you want to add
Even more value to your token,
Make it non-oomycetable
As well, just in case.

Oomycetes are very fungi-like too.

•

Alexey is a pacifist who lives and contemplates the interconnections between different art forms in Sydney, the city that inspires him in a variety of delightful ways. He holds a media degree from the University of New South Wales. Alexey’s micro-chapbook, Non-Fungible Token, is published by the Origami Poems Project. His work has appeared in Jersey Devil Press, The Raven Review, New Note Poetry, dadakuku, and Quibble.

•

Grief - Marsh Muirhead

Grief

You say
you cannot get another dog,
the inevitable heartbreak
too much to bear,
but the dog you do not get now
will die in time,
as will the one you do not get
after that,
your grief safely tucked away,
your heart unbroken
until it stops.

Marsh Muirhead lives on the banks of the Mississippi River, near the source, in northern Minnesota. His work has appeared in Poetry East, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere. He has published two collections of haiku – Her Cold Martini, and Last Night of the Carnival – and his haiku have been found engraved in the sidewalk on the Palm Avenue bridge in Key West, on a rock along the Haiku Walk in Millersburg, Ohio, and have been read by Billy Collins on his poetry broadcast several times. Marsh once won the annual Great American Think-Off essay and debate contest addressing the question: “Does Poetry Matter.” He said it did and does.

•

Learning to Read – Laura Sloan Patterson

Learning to Read

This is how you teach your child
to spell your lover’s name
This is how you wrap your hand
around a clump of snow
This is how you polish up your home:
in silver paint and glass
This is how you pack your things to go
This is how you move from house to house
This is how you coax the buds from snow
This is how you huddle close,
in blasts of winter night

•

Laura Sloan Patterson is an English professor at Seton Hill University in western Pennsylvania. Her poetry has appeared in Lines + Stars, Spry, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, WomenArts Quarterly, The Mom Egg, Rust + Moth, HOOT, The North Carolina Literary Review, and other journals. She was a finalist for the James Applewhite Poetry Prize awarded by the North Carolina Literary Review.

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The Sundown - JD DeHart

The Sundown

the chain-link, the stay up All
Night youth.

Eating breakout out
because we suddenly could drive.

The soccer when I couldn’t play
run around me in basketball,

questions
of what I would trade to belong.

Finally, it was a dissolving, enough
rough talk of sex,

ways I couldn’t be,
words I wouldn’t use,

tired of trying to step
across that fence.

•

JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. He has been publishing poetry actively since 2012 and has taught students from the age of 4 to 40. Currently a high school English teacher, he is currently working on his PhD in Literacy Studies. His latest collection of poetry, A Five-Year Journey, has recently been released by Dreaming Big Publications. DeHart blogs about books and authors at literacyworkandplay.blogspot.com •

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Kitsungi– Ariana D. den Bleyker

Kitsungi

this bowl can still be repaired
even if it seems broken

irredeemably,
even if its pieces

have been trodden underfoot,
further ground down

in an effort to recover
the fragments,

the edges jigsawed together
to align again—

to simply embrace the cracks
that remain,

filling them with something
like hope.

•

Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in New York’s Hudson Valley where she is a wife and mother of two. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with her family and every once in a while sleeps. She is the author of three collections and twenty chapbooks, among others. She is the founder and publisher of ELJ Editions, Ltd., a 501(c)(3) literary nonprofit. She hopes you'll fall in love with her words.

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Pushcart Prize logo

All original work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

• ♦ •

Pushcart Nominations 2022

Pushcart Prize logo

Origami Poems Project - Pushcart Prize Nominations 2022

Our 6 Nominated Poems

2022 Pushcart 6 Covers

If air was heavy – Dan Fitzgerald

If air was heavy

If air was heavy
and I was not,
my home would be in the sky
with strolling clouds as neighbors.
Birds would fly up to say hello.
Rain would always fall beneath my feet.
In the evening,
when the sun has gone to rest,
the moon and I will sit together
counting our lucky stars.

•

Dan Fitzgerald lives quietly in Pontiac, Illinois, tending to home and garden. His poems have been published in The Writer’s Journal, PKA Advocate, Nomad’s Choir and many others. His work is also included in several anthologies.

Summer of 2020 - Laurie Kolp

Summer of 2020

There were wolves
living in our neighborhood.
Each night at 8 p.m.,
I heard them howl.

When boredom struck,
they came out from the woods,
these lonely wolves
in a verbless neighborhood.

Orchestrated by adults,
lockdown kids would
howl from their front
doors in unison, a yowl

of “wolves” coming to life
in neighborhoods.
Each night at 8 p.m.,
I heard them howl.

•

Laurie Kolp is an avid runner and lover of nature living in southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs. She is the author of Upon the Blue Couch and Hello, It's Your Mother. She enjoys writing found poetry because it creates restraints and unleashes inhibitions at the same time. Laurie is currently working on a project to honor her father, who passed away unexpectedly in 2021.
•

Breathing In, Breathing Out - Darrell Petska

Breathing In, Breathing Out

On the Earth
spinning in space
around the Sun
spinning in space
within the galaxy
spinning in space

until mind
ceasing to spin
weds space
endlessly spinning

time’s window
opening again
to all possibilities.

Darrell Petska is a retired engineering editor and a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and fiction can be found in 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, Verse Virtual, POETiCA REViEW and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). A father of five and grandfather of six, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.

•

Communion - Vivian Wagner

Communion

Birches stand like
undiscovered saints
out my window, patient
and calm, even as
a wintering wind
blows through them.
They bow and bless,
forgiving the trespasses
of ravens and red squirrels,
while a magpie flashes
a waft of indigo incense,
and the moon shifts
slightly in her seat.

•

Vivian Wagner’s work has appeared in Slice Magazine, Muse/A Journal, Forage Poetry Journal, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Gone Lawn, Gastro Obscura, The Atlantic, Narratively, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, Bending Genres, and other publications. She's the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House); and four poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press), and Spells of the Apocalypse (Thirty West Publishing House). Her website: http://vivianwagner.net/.

•

the big why - Peter Roberts

the big why

why is there something?
because nothingness is much
too much to bear,
existence is
the lighter load,
the easier thing.

•

Peter Roberts has poems forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, & have had poems & stories published in a number of venues, including Coffin Bell, LabLit.com, Illumen, Meniscus, phase shift (a microchap from Origami Poems Project), Haikuniverse, Shoreline of Infinity, Scifaikuest, Shot Glass Journal, The Chaffin Journal, Nature "Futures", Bitter Oleander, Lilliput Review, The Road Not Taken, Contemporary Verse 2, Poetry Salzburg Review, The South Carolina Review, Astropoetica, Café Irreal, Ars Medica, The Wisconsin Review, The William and Mary Review, New York Quarterly, & many more. Web Site: https://god-and-country.info/personal.html

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Uffda - Mo Soulis

Uffda

An expression popularized by
Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota.
It translates as “Oh there” and is
typically an expression of some
degree of negativity.

Uffda can therefore be a substitute
for common obscenities, as well as
general-purpose expressions of
exhaustion, dismay, or even
positive expressions of surprise or
astonishment.

How Uffda Got His Name*

There are two versions of how the
baby Uffda got his name:

1. The mid-wife encouraged his
mother Heleena, to push with vigor.
His mother, with great exertion
shouted “Uffda!” and out popped
a little boy. Holy Cow!

2. After he was born the midwife
held him up for his father Otis to
see him for the first time —
Otis exclaimed, “Uffda!”

* It was deemed prudent by Heleena
to go with the first version.
Stern faced, Otis, agreed.

Childhood:

Uffda loved the idea of being
descended from Viking warriors,
as Otis always reminded him.
Yet, due to the influence of his
mother, Uffda developed an
easy going attitude.

He never seemed to get too
bothered one way or another,
until Otis gave him his first
Viking hand axe. There was some
unpleasantness, you betcha!
- dogs missing tails, village children
being terrorized by a screaming
five-year-old swinging an axe over
his head, dead birds —
and a few other minor incidents.

As Young Man:

As Uffda grew he became somewhat
handsome. Village mothers said,
“Boy, that Uffda is lookin’ not too bad,
ya know! Their daughters agreed.
One day Helleena said, “Uffda, I believe
you have great potential to satisfy a
young woman as a husband.”

“Oh boy” thought Uffda. “If I could win
the beautiful Freya, them there village
boys would know I’m a man.”
It was right then when Uffda fell in love
for the first time — with his Potential.

But could he fall in love with Freya?
Or she with him?

•

Mo Soulis is retired and lives in Black Mountain, NC. He is co-author of 'Wonder, Joy, Simple Peace,' a collection of 36 ‘Haikai no Renga’ verse that can be found on Amazon.

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Pushcart Prize logo

All original work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

• ♦ •

Pushcart Nominations 2021

Pushcart Prize logo

Origami Poems Project - Pushcart Prize Nominations 2021

Our 6 nominated poems - Click title to open/read

{slider Scalene - Emma Foster}

Scalene

•

By Emma Foster from her microchap, 'Isoceles Triangle'

Emma Foster is a fiction writer and poet from Florida. She has been published in the Cedarville Review, Ariel Chart, the Aurora Journal, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Nailpolish Stories and others.

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{slider Ten Years Missing Amy - Diane Elayne Dees}

Ten Years

A decade has past,
and I imagine you
as you might be today:
Perhaps shocks of pink or silver
would replace your beehive,
maybe you would tour with Tony,
maybe you would go to rehab.
It’s a blurry image, dimly lit,
but I see you—
still fusing words and music
like heaven’s cheeky magician,
still devoted to the Shangri-Las,
still able to rip the seams
of the fragile fabric of my soul.

•

By Diane Elayne Dees from her microchap 'Missing Amy'

Diane Elayne Dees lives in Covington, Louisiana, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane is the author of the chapbook, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), and the forthcoming chapbooks, I Can’t Recall Exactly When I Died, and The Last Time I Saw You. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees, Poet and Writer-at-Large.

•

{slider Against the Current - Matthew James Friday}

Against the Current'

The red tailed hawk flies a tugged line
over the pines that rig the riverside,
along a taste of cracked toffee rocks.

Oddly slow, the hawk, as if fighting a tide.
Puppet wings but the strings are invisible.
Behind the river groans. There’s a plan

to build 250 homes against the cliffs,
trees to be cleared, paths suffocated,
the hawk’s clawed opinions ignored.

By Matthew James Friday from his microchap 'The Residents'

Matthew James Friday is a British born writer and teacher. He has been published in numerous international journals, including, recently: Dawntreader (UK), VerbalArt (India), and Lunch Ticket (USA). The micro-chapbooks All the Ways to Love, Waters of Oregon and The Words Unsaid were published by the Origami Poems Project (USA). Read more of his work at: http://matthewfriday.weebly.com/

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{slider days of writing - Craig Kitner}

days of writing spent
not writing
and writing
about nothing and the passage of years
in minutes and minutes
stretching out

I don't know how long
the past has been in the past
or if it even matters

without thought
time gets deprived of its sting
and flows across the day like honey

every thought you have
was had by another you
or will be

a thought is no
singular thing
it carries its baggage like we do

•

By Craig Kitner from his microchap 'across the day like honey'

Craig Kittner has lived a lot of places. Fourteen at last count. Providence saw the start of interesting things that DC helped solidify. Now he lives near the sea in North Carolina and likes to ramble and write. Recent publications include Rabid Oak, CP Quarterly, Right Hand Pointing, and Bones.

•

{slider Into the Wild Unusual Dawn - Carolyn Adams}

Into the Wild Unusual Dawn

In this vicious
day
of extremity,
the sun
arrives like a black
dog
worrying fire
in its teeth.

•

By Carolyn Adams from her microchap 'Into the Wild Unusual'

Carolyn Adams' poetry and art have appeared in Steam Ticket, Cimarron Review, Topology, Apercus Quarterly, and Blueline Magazine, among others. She is the author of four chapbooks, and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, as well as for Best of the Net.

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{slider The Fall - Joris Soeding}

The Fall

they weren’t kidding
when they said this is the greatest
to be with you
I’m sorry that you tripped
but I’ll always take to embracing
remember
without healing there cannot be hurt

(Inspired by Julie Rotblatt-Amrany’s sculpture,
“Compassion Moves a World”)

•

By Joris Soeding from his microchap 'After Highland Park'

Joris Soeding's most recent collections of poetry are Forty (Rinky Dink Press, 2019) and Home in Nine Moons (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2018). Soeding’s writing has appeared in publications such as Another Chicago Magazine, Columbia Poetry Review, and Red River Review. He is a fifth grade Language Arts teacher in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, son, daughter, and kittens.

{/sliders}

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2021 Pushcart Prize Covers FOR WEB

Pushcart Prize logo

All original work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

• ♦ •

Pushcart Nominations 2020

Pushcart Prize logo

Origami Poems Project - Pushcart Prize Nominations 2020

Our 6 nominated poems - Click title to open/read

{slider What My Mother Told Me - Lois Marie Harrod}

Not much.
She wasn’t much of a talker.

Sometimes a tad.
Be quiet in church.

Mostly cautionary.
Chatter is the coin of fools.

She didn’t know
silence makes some uneasy

and refused gossip.
Be kind, she said

and I tried
to harness my tongue

but the pen proved, as pens do,
that writing is a sword

silent
and sneaky.

•

From her microchap, 'Karl's Rhubarb'

Lois Marie Harrod’s latest collection Woman was published by Blue Lyra in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work www.loismarieharrod.org

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{slider Strange Days - Donald Krieger}

...black men ...face ...a 1 in 1000 chance of being killed by police...
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2019

I woke to the governor's
stay-at-home order,
drove the turnpike anyway.
Each cop we passed,
and there were many,
I thought of my white Subaru,
and my skin,
like a thousand times before.

•

From his microchap 'Our Shared Humanities'

Donald Krieger is a biomedical researcher whose focus is the electric activity within the brain. His hybrid collection, "Discovery," is forthcoming from Cyberwit in July, 2020. He is a 2020 Creative Nonfiction Foundation Science-as-Story Fellow. His work has appeared in Hanging Loose, Neurology, Live Mag!, The Raw Art Review, Seneca Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Asahi Shimbun, Entropy, Vox Populi Sphere, Dissident Voice, and others, and has appeared in several anthologies in both English and Farsi.

•

{slider The New Physics - Diane Elayne Dees}

In these pandemic times,
my house is now a gym,
my house is now a library,
a coffee shop, a first aid
station, a yoga studio.
My house is now my body,
with boundaries expanding
and contracting
like a forgotten figment
of Einstein’s imagination.

From her microchap 'Pandemic Times'

Diane Elayne Dees's poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Her chapbook, Coronary Truth, is available from Kelsay Books, and another chapbook is forthcoming. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women's professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

{slider When Your Granny Panties Saved Me - Katie Manning}

One time when I wet my pants at your house, I knew my mom would be mad. I was too old for this. You washed me up and put me in a pair of your underwear. The white briefs were baggy on my little body and made us both laugh when I ran through the house while we waited for my clothes to go through your yellowed washer and dryer. Then you got me dressed before my mom returned from work. You never said a word. I never forgot. I stood up at your funeral and told this story.

•

From 'The Best of Kindness 2020' - Finalist

Katie Manning is the founding editor-in-chief of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Her book Tasty Other won the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and her fifth chapbook, 28,065 Nights, is forthcoming from River Glass Books.

•

{slider Family Farm, 2035 - Virginia Aronson}

Glorious fruit trees, acres of buds
pretty and sweet promising honey
flavored with lemon, mango, lime
the bees plump and circling, dreamy
flights around our orchards.

Lush rows of summer peas
corn, tomatoes, crookneck squash
the soil deep black earth
worms, organic creatures busy
enriching all we grow and eat.

Bountiful hauls of produce to sell,
wild orchids and moon vines, hemp
to make reusable bags for shopping
at the local stands in every town
supporting small farms that feed us.

Heavenly skies, pink sunset clouds
enough rain, enough sun, fresh air
a clean blue lake chock full of life
turtles, black bass and catfish
feed for gators, bear, eagles
red fox living in palmetto scrub.

The glory of lives now gone
back to the future, forward
to a paradise past, our hands
to mouth to mouths, our faces
unmasked and full of gratitude
for what we have yet to lose.

•

From her microchap 'Farmlandia, Part 2'

Virginia Aronson is the Director of Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation. She is the author/coauthor of more than 40 published books. Her novel about food and climate change, A Garden on Top of the World, was published by Dixi Books (London, 2019). Dixi also published Mottainai: A Journey in Search of the Zero Waste Life. In 2021, Adelaide Books will release Bull Sugar: A Not So Sweet Novel about the sugar industry. Visit at fnrfoundation.org.

•

{slider Brian Eno and the Buddha - Barb Reynolds}

I blast Brian Eno when I wake:

An Ending (Ascent) vibrates

and hums in my torso & limbs,

emanates up through the skylight

and back down, sun spilling

onto the opal tile floor.

It’s Sunday, and this is my church.

I think about the man here in Oakland

who, tired of waking to junk

dumped in his yard,

set out a statue of the Buddha.

Soon, no more trash.

People lined up to sweep

and to pray. They took care

of the Buddha, built an altar,

brought the man more food

than his family could eat.

And I think: he could’ve sat out there

all night with a shotgun, waiting—

but no.

With this one peaceful gesture

he sparked kindness

instead of hatred; humanity

over retaliation. Ascension.

These notes, these chords, these tones—

they rip my whole heart open,

empty it into this room.

•

From 'The Best of Kindness 2020' - 3rd place winner

Barb Reynolds spent 22 years as an emergency response child abuse investigator. Her chapbook Boxing Without Gloves came out on Finishing Line Press in 2014 and was shortlisted for the 2015 Rubery Int'l First Book Prize. Barb founded & curates the Second Sunday Poetry Series in Berkeley, CA.

{/sliders}

•

Pushcart Prize logo

All work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

• ♦ •

Kindness 2020 Contest

WEB Close to the Center Lauri Burke 2020

Cover artwork: 'Close to the Center' by Lauri Burke 2020

• Our Kindness Contest held May 1 thru July 15 2020 - Origami Poems Project, a 501(c)3 non-profit •

Poetry that shares insight into the qualities that make us better beings...

Anthology available on Amazon.com

Winning Poems

First Place

{slider A Sorrow, Sweet by Lucy Griffith}

Time slips another abacus bead. ~ Maxine Kumin

In a creased black and white photo

four of us line up on her back,

feet dangling far above the stirrups.

Pale Sugar presides, calm as pondwater.

I am closest to her tail,

straddling the broad beam of her rump,

a damp boy in front of me,

two toddlers in front of him.

My thighs sticky with horsehair,

my smile gap-toothed.

A pounded path circled the ranch house.

Loose-lipped, she toured us for hours,

round and round.

Deep summer, cicadas rattled in the trees,

the descending whoop of roadrunners haunted the breeze.

We led the white mare into the swimming hole,

dove off her back, smelled her wet skin,

swam between her legs,

knew it was safe, but

knew not to tell.

* * *

A decade later, home from college,

I find Sugar in the pens, near death—

down on a hard hump of caliche beneath an angry sun.

No fit way to go. I want her to die in the shade.

Nearby, I nest a bed of hay beneath a monarch oak.

Then, halter her, brace my feet,

petition a rise, one more time.

With a low groan, a ripple of effort,

she unfolds to stand, unsteady.

I reach down her leg, drag each foot forward.

Left fore. Right fore.

Left hind. Right hind.

She leans on me for balance.

Slow going, foot by foot,

but I am fierce with gratitude.

I tighten the girth on my heart.

She makes it, crumples into hay.

I bring water in a bucket,

she licks molasses from my hand,

stretches out in shadow,

her great bony head in my lap.

I bury my hands in her mane.

Happiest on a tractor named Mabel (a muse of 55 horsepower) Lucy Griffith lives on a ranch beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. Her first collection of poems We Make a Tiny Herd was published by Main Street Rag as a finalist in their poetry book contest. Tiny Herd was recently awarded the Wrangler Prize for Poetry by the Western Heritage and Cowboy Hall of Fame. She won the Returning Contributor Award in Poetry for the 2019 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In addition, she was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize in 2019.

•

{/sliders}

Second Place

{slider Watching My Son Feed My Mother by donnarkevic}

His movements are rhythmic
like waves, moving in
and out. He trims the asparagus.
Without effort, she swallows soft tips.
Between bites he converses
about geology, how diamonds
do not come from coal
but from depths
far below sedimentary rock.

With a butter knife, he dices
the liver and onions.
If she could speak, my mother
would explain food
from a Depression era childhood,
the rarity of an orange
eaten on special occasions
like Christmas
when her father drank too much,
how she fed him succulent crescents,
the seeds spit out in her hand,
how she saved them,
planting them in pots
on the kitchen windowsill
like nesting doves.
She would explain
that even with loving care,
the sprouts failed to thrive.

While my son steadies the straw,
my mother leans forward.
I watch her lips
purse, try to suck,
how quick he is to wipe her chin
and explain how diamonds
rarely make it to the surface,
how deep we must dig,
the value we attach
seeming to make all the difference.

donnarkevic: Buckhannon, WV. MFA National University. Recent work appears in The Centifictionist, Blue Collar Review, and Ancient Paths. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. Poetry Chapbooks include Laundry, published in 2005 by Main Street Rag. FutureCycle Press published, Admissions, a book of poems, in 2013. Many Sparrows, a book of poems was published in 2018 by The Poetry Box. Plays have received readings in Chicago, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia.

•

{/sliders}

Third Place

{slider Brian Eno & the Buddha by Barb Reynolds}

I blast Brian Eno when I wake:

An Ending (Ascent) vibrates

and hums in my torso & limbs,

emanates up through the skylight

and back down, sun spilling

onto the opal tile floor.

It’s Sunday, and this is my church.

I think about the man here in Oakland

who, tired of waking to junk

dumped in his yard,

set out a statue of the Buddha.

Soon, no more trash.

People lined up to sweep

and to pray. They took care

of the Buddha, built an altar,

brought the man more food

than his family could eat.

And I think: he could’ve sat out there

all night with a shotgun, waiting—

but no.

With this one peaceful gesture

he sparked kindness

instead of hatred; humanity

over retaliation. Ascension.

These notes, these chords, these tones—

they rip my whole heart open,

empty it into this room.

•

{/sliders}

Honorable Mentions*

{slider The Doe in Winter by Marlene Dean}

I want to say

before I disappear,

my edges dissolving like

fallow leaves at the bottom

of a pond,

to say before I go

all the truth I know

distilled in a word

and this one word is

compassion.

Every flower turns to face

the same light that warms you.

Every mammal feels the depths

of all the sorrow you have known.

I want to tell you

whoever you are

that you are not alone.

The apples you gave

the starving doe in winter

were a gift unto yourself,

her graceful hoof prints,

the shape of your heart in the snow.

Marlene Dean holds a M.A. in English and creative writing. Her poems, essays and columns have appeared in anthologies, literary journals and newspapers in Canada and the U.S.

{slider On Sharing by Nancy Brewka-Clark}

To have a support group

some assembly’s required

using a simple measure:

the matter of common need.

Some assembly’s required

to find the right people,

the matter of common need

uniting disparate souls.

To find the right people,

look first for compassion.

Uniting disparate souls

calls for bountiful trust.

Look first for compassion.

The heart of the matter

calls for bountiful trust

among erstwhile strangers.

The heart of the matter

—to hear matters of the heart—

gives erstwhile strangers

the courage to speak up.

To hear matters of the heart

the listener needs patience.

The courage to speak up

comes when others care.

The listener needs patience

to draw out another’s need.

To heal because others care

is the sweet prize of kindness.

Nancy Brewka-Clark's poetry appears in many periodicals and anthologies including Medical Literary Messenger, The North American Review, Two-Countries by Red Hen Press and Visiting Frost by the University of Iowa Press. She is past winner of the Helen Schaible International Sonnet Competition, a finalist in the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred competition and the 2019 winner of the Amy Lowell Poetry Prize. Her debut book of poetry, Beautiful Corpus, was published in March by Kelsay Books.

{slider A Silent Interaction by Laura Kozy Lanik}

My grandpa told me about a man he met

during World War II

a man who spoke a different language,

who practiced a different religion,

who lived in a concentration camp

until it was liberated by American soldiers.

My grandpa told me this man changed his life,

and in these last 50 years,

not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about him

even though he never knew his name.

He never forgot him.

My grandpa told me he started smoking

when he enlisted in the Army Air Force,

the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

He put his Army issued cigarettes

in his shirt pocket and carried them everywhere.

My grandpa told me toward the end of the war

in April 1945, he walked through a

liberated concentration camp in Germany.

He couldn't remember which one,

where he noticed a emaciated man

lying on the cold, hard ground,

too weak to get up and

walk out of camp with the others.

This man reached out his hand,

and my grandfather gave him the cigarette

he was smoking.

My grandpa told me he helped the man

smoke the cigarette.

He held it to his mouth,

and he puffed once, then twice.

The man smiled and my grandpa smiled too.

His dull eyes lit up with a spark

before he passed from this world into the next.

My grandpa told me of the silent interaction

between two men at the end of the war,

and I never forgot this simple act of kindness and

how it created a ripple that has lasted for generations.

Laura Kozy Lanik teaches High School Social Studies in Minneapolis. Laura is the co-creator and co-editor of Upon Waking. 58 Voices Speaking Out from the Shadow of Abuse poetry anthology published in April of 2019.

{/sliders}

* (in no particular order)

Finalist Poems

{slider All Day After The Morning Our Dog Caught - Neil Kennedy}

All day after the morning our dog caught
a baby squirrel dead between her teeth
and dropped it bloodied on the kitchen floor,
we shouted and stomped until she was sure
she had done something wrong and hid beneath
the table until the lesson was taught.

Before turning off your light, you gated
your doorway. The dog, in turn, had to steal
down the hall, past my door, where I waited
for her with a scrap from our evening meal
and called her up to the foot of my bed.
Not always keeping score for wrong and right,
I could have scolded that dog, but instead
invited her to sleep with me that night.

Neil Kennedy is a poet and librarian. His work has appeared in Origami Poems Project, The Road Not Taken, The Orchards, and others.

{slider Class Photo - Francis DiClemente}

Seeing every person
As a 12-year-old child
Taking a school photo
Eliminates any animosity
You may have for that person.
When you imagine
The awkward kid squinting
At the camera lens—
You discover yourself
Staring back at you.

Francis DiClemente is the author of two full-length poetry collections, most recently Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2019). He lives in Syracuse, New York, and his blog can be found at francisdiclemente.com.

{slider DEAR STRANGERS: Memphis, TN, October, 2012 - Helen M. D'Ordine}

I was looking for God and

He was looking out for me,

sending you my way to

prop me up, give me strength.

Dear strangers, you responded to the

911 call made by the hotel.

My husband was having seizures

in a strange city, a strange state.

One of you drove us to a hospital. In the wee

hours, in the Emergency Department, you,

dear stranger, kindly custodian, brought me a comfy

chair as I prepared to call our children.

That morning my husband was in the ICU

diagnosed with a right frontal lobe brain tumor.

I’d told you, young nurse, that we were in

Memphis celebrating his 70th birthday.

Into his sterile, barren room, you brought

a large “Happy Birthday” pirate balloon.

That you, dear stranger, spent your own money,

softened the blow of possible surgery.

In an elevator, I ranted to you, fellow rider,

who’d merely asked, “How are you today?”

The next day we met again, and dear stranger,

you remembered my story, bringing comfort.

Kindness matters less to the giver than

to the receiver: me. Mostly, alone,

dealing with a medical emergency,

making life-changing decisions.

You, dear strangers, came into my life.

You may not remember me, but I remember you.

Small, random acts having profound impact,

speaking louder than words.

Helen M. D’Ordine is a retired teacher, former RIC adjunct professor, former member of the Writers' Circle, RI Writing Project Fellow, Block Island Poetry Project participant, Ocean State Poet and Origami Poet. Her poems are published in Möbius, RI Wriers' Circle Anthology, The Providence Journal: Poetry Corner, Medicine & Health/RI, Ocean State Poets' homepage, Where Beach Meets Ocean: Block Island Poetry Anthology, They Worked-We Write, The Best of KIndness, First Edition, Thursdays at 2, WAA: Poetry/Art 2013-2016, 2018, 2019.

{slider Dollar Store - C.T. Holte}

It's a great place

for certain things you need

from time to time (Sudoku books,

trail mix, lightbulbs) and other things

you didn't know you needed but might

have a use for and only cost a dollar.

So why not?

I have enough “Why not?” dollars,

but my reality is not the only one.

Some who shop at the Dollar Store

because things only cost a dollar

may have trouble finding the dollar,

as did the lady behind me as I stood in line

to buy the red socks with piano keys–

perfect for choir Sundays–

and we discussed how the checks

always seem to come late and leave too soon.

She had only a small container of Advil.

And only 75 cents,

or so she told the cashier sotto voce.

The quarter I slipped the cashier quietly,

chump-change in my world,

may have helped make

the lady's day less headachy,

but added an ache to mine

as I realized that the difference

between her place in line and mine

was only a flip of the coin.

She said, “Bless you”

as I headed for the door.

No dollar could buy that.

C.T. Holte was born in Minnesota before color TV; grew up playing under bridges, along creeks, in cornfields; went to lots of school, then gigs as teacher, writer, editor, and less wordy things. Recently migrated to New Mexico and learning about fiery Southwestern chiles and sunsets: color and warmth together–like good poetry. His poetry has appeared in places like Words, Touch, California Quarterly, Survival (Poets Speak, vol. 5), and The Raven’s Perch, and has been hung from trees to celebrate the Rio Grande Bosque.

{slider Friends - Nancy Sack}

You accompanied me

On the rollercoaster of care

In the decline of my parents’ lives

You comforted me

When my fractured emotions

Broke into shapeless pieces

You supported me

When I needed to be lifted

Out of the chasm of despair

You celebrated my career highs

And my children’s journeys

Your kindness sparkled my world

Oh friends

Precious friends

Nancy Sack writes poetry and prose that contain a rich array of figurative language, imagery, and narrative expressing universal concerns about contemporary life issues. Many of her poems and prose have been published in national anthologies, literary journals, the NCTE Writer’s Gallery and magazines throughout her years of teaching high school English and ESL in the metropolitan Chicago area. In addition to her adult book, Musing Along the Ike, she has a children's book, Puppies and Poems, which is also available on Amazon. Nancy Sack is an educator, literacy volunteer, writer, story teller, and photographer.

{slider Junkyard Dog - Lynda La Rocca}

The old dog crouches by the car.

He has a scar

across his nose

put there by those

who hit and hurt him. Somehow he

has broken free,

and now he needs

a home, he pleads,

paw raised, tail wagging, one soft sigh.

Tonight he’ll lie

beside my feet,

new friend, sad, sweet.

Lynda La Rocca has worked as a journalist, freelance writer, copy editor, and community-college teaching assistant. Her poetry collections include The Stillness Between (2009, Pudding House Publications, Ohio) and Spiral (2012, Liquid Light Press, CO); her poems have appeared in numerous state and national poetry-society anthologies, plus such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Quarterly, Frogpond (Haiku Society of America), and Children’s Playmate. She performs her poetry solo and with the River City Nomads, a performance-poetry troupe based in Salida, CO, where she lives with her writer-photographer husband Steve Voynick.

{Let's make the World a better place by giving to the needy - Emmanuel Ojeikhodion}

On the roadside here in Lagos,

a gallery of mendicants perches on one side.

Some bending, sitting, standing and crawling

with their enamel plate.

Their mouth breaks into a prayer for passers-by

and commuters.

Somedays when I pass here, I give them all

I have on me.

In return, I carry the stench of their prayers

home like a cologne.

A friend asks me: What reward do you receive

when you give?

I told him when we give, we do so by opening little

doors in our life where kindness shelters kindness,

and the little things we pray for reaches God's heart

in seconds

Emmanuel Ojeikhodion is a young emerging writer from Nigeria who majors in Poetry and sometimes Essays. His writings explores separation, loss, grief, depression, anxiety, rape & identity. He's currently running a bachelor's degree in English and literature. He loves listening to old music and to read new poems. His poems have been published / forthcoming in Capsule Stories, Rigorous, Chachalaca Review, Pangolin Review African Writer, Museum of Poetry, Déraciné Mag & elsewhere.

{slider Lift - Ella Mae E. Janairo}

I always thought,

Arguments could be the answer,

A healthy conversation,

That would lead to understanding,

But lately, it’s just not the same,

That if chaos comes,

Smile is best thing,

I could offer.

Ella Mae E. Janairo is a word play enthusiast from the Philippines who just can't help but dream big.

{slider Made A Friend - Joy Moore}

Got to school, still had time,

saw a kid, full of grime.

Asked him why, said he fell,

he was hurting, I could tell.

Asked for water, with a please,

helped him wash, his sore knees.

Shared a smile, helped him mend,

Split a cookie, made a friend.

Joy Moore is an active member of SCBWI, 12 x 12, a graduate of The Institute of Children’s Literature, Making Picture Magic, A Picture Book Master Class, The Lyrical Language Lab, The Art of the Arc and Kids Book Revisions. Her writing credits include: Wiggle-Wiggle, Scratch-Scratch, Itch-Itch-Itch with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Pink Riding Hood and the Warty Stick Monster with Bumples magazine. Song of the Whippoorwill with Balloon’s Literary Journal. Moments with Kids Imagination Train. Daydreaming with Kids Imagination Train. Visit: Word-Painting.webs.com

{slider Mother's Day Roses - Annette Libeskind Berkovits}

We sat in utter despair, waiting.

Two women who loved him,

a mother and wife broken

by his brain hemorrhage.

Echoes bounced off the polished

hallway; gurneys passed;

he wasn’t on them.

He was a moth in the ICU

hovering too close to flame.

Each of us grieved in our own way;

she a monsoon in India;

I, a windswept, parched Atacama.

A surreal vision appeared,

his neurosurgeon, the God of neuro ICU

handed each of us a bouquet of roses.

Annette Libeskind Berkovits was born in Kyrgyzstan and grew up in postwar Poland and the fledgling state of Israel before coming to America at age sixteen. Her stories and poems have appeared in Silk Road Review: a Literary Crossroads; Persimmon Tree; American Gothic: a New Chamber Opera; Blood & Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine; and in The Healing Muse. She has published two memoirs and is completing a historical novel. See: annetteberkovits.com

{slider My Proudest Day - Michelle Reeves}

The weather was the polar opposite of the feelings of us present at the funeral.

The sun was asserting its celestial dominance as it bathed

us in its warm light as we stood by his graveside and it rained from our eyes.

His family lived right next to us and he had been the same age with my son.

Leukemia had been six year old Tommy’s killer and as I

looked down at my son, Kess, clutching my hand, I could

barely imagine the intensity of their pain.

Little Nina was crying her soul out, her delicate frame

trembling as her puffy blue eyes stared at her big brother’s grave.

Everyone had called them Hansel and Gretel and they had been

as close as thunder and lightning.

She looked like her little heart was breaking and I felt

mine shatter as I watched her shoulders quaking.

Her mummy looked mummified and her father a zombie, their

family to be made whole never again.

Kess looks up to me and in his brown eyes there is sadness

I can see and I brace myself for questions that toddlers ask.

“Mama, Nina must be so sad cause she can’t play with Tommy

anymore because he is in heaven, right?”

I nod to my baby as tears blur my sight, then he lets go of

my hand, toddles to Nina and holds her hand.

“Nina please don’t be so sad, I know I’m not Tommy but I

promise to give you hugs like he did. I know I’m not Tommy

but I promise to always play with you like he did. I’m your

brother too. I know Tommy loves you and I do too, so don’t

be so sad Nina because you have me too. Hugsies?”

Then my little Kess uses his sleeve to wipe her tears and

He puts his arms around and pats her head and smiles.

I choke on my tears as they gush down and I proudly stare at

Kess who knows that to be truly human, you have to be kind.

Michelle Obasohan is a spoken word artist and writer who was born and raised in Benin City, Nigeria and is popularly known by her stage name; Michelle Reeves. She has written novels, short stories, poems, articles and plays; which have been performed on stage. She is currently a final year Law student in the University of Benin.

{slider Nebbish - Christopher Stephen Soden}

He was hitchhiking when I stopped

on the expressway, head wrapped

in bandages, wisdom teeth extracted.

He’d run out of money for bus fare,

his mother too busy to take him

to the dentist. Despite salt throb

and disorientation he offered to pay

for my gas, once his paycheck came.

We worked together at Taylor’s Books

and just like me, he took his turn

at the cash registers, shelving, helped

customers on the phone and floor.

30 minutes for lunch. He had

a mop of hair the color of molasses, brush

mustache and googly, Mad Scientist glasses.

He might have been a bit slow to catch on,

and sometimes fray your nerves.

But vigilant as a Franciscan monk,

and not a drop of harm in him.

Veronica was our manager: proud and slender

as a cornstalk, amber honeycomb hair.

Moonbeam skin clustered with freckles.

Cunning as a hawk. Do I need to explain

he irritated Veronica, or that she fired him,

with no prospects ahead? She could have

cracked the planet like an egg

and gobbled it raw, but instead chose

to devour a chipper, innocuous soul, because

she wanted to. Because she could.

I thank our Father, watching across the black,

bone-chilling cosmos, for putting him there.

Blood jamming his gauze-packed jaw, as he sat

next to me in the car, oblivious to the cruelty

done to him. I can’t. I can't even remember

his name.

Christopher Stephen Soden received his MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) in January 2005 from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has written film and theatre critique for The Fort Worth Ally, EdgeDallas, John Garcia’s The Column, Examiner.com and sharpcritic.com. His poetry has appeared in numerous venues including: The Cortland Review, Rattle, G & L Review, The Texas Observer, Borderlands, Assaracus, and Ganymede Poets. Short plays of his (including: Water, Radio Flyer, Every Day is Christmas. In Heaven. and Queer Anarchy have been staged at Bishop Arts Theatre Center, The MAC and Nouveau 47. Christopher also teaches and lectures on craft, theory, genre and explication.

{slider On the Subway, June 2015 - J.Lois Diamond}

On the subway, the Nanny

large and dark sits her

two charges down

while she stands

She hands the boy

a demi bottle of water

As he opens his mouth

out comes a wad full

of gum

He presents it to her

like it is the most

wondrous of gifts

She accepts it gently

bared hands without

reproach, no words that

it’s dirty, has germs or

carries disease

She discreetly reaches for

the empty skittles wrapper

in his sisters’ hands and

wraps it inside the crackling foil

I long to be these children,

the Nanny

or even the used piece of Wrigley’s

they so lovingly share

Lois Diamond is a poet and playwright. Her poem “Done With That” will be published in the anthology “Aunt Flo” 2020-2021. She was a featured poet at The Cornelia St Café. Her poems “The Bodies”, Where is Bess?”, “On Thursday Afternoon” were published Syndic Literary Journal, issue 21, 7/19. Her poem “The Parting” published, The Visual In Verse, Grounds for Sculpture, 2016. Her poem HURRICANE SANDY, finale NY LADIES, The Hudson Guild Theatre, 2013. She studied poetry with Harris Schiff , Alice Notley, St. Marks in the Bowery. Her play Growl, inspired by life of Iranian poet, produced Downtown Urban Arts Festival, 2019 , Theatre Odyssey, 2019. Accepted into Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Valdez, 2020, rescheduled for 2021. See: jloisdiamond.com

{slider One Day of Mourning - Joshua Davies}

Can there be a day of mourning for

the kindness that’s been lost?

A day of rest and refuge, where

we treat with tenderness all in this life

that is abandoned and attacked?

Can we have one day of silence,

where we listen without judgment?

Create a hallowed space to bind the wounds

by being present, with the care

of loving consciousness?

Can there be a day of emptiness,

of a great unmaking? Where pettiness,

cruelty and injustice dissolve and are

forsworn? Can we bring this loving presence

to our own lives, lay down our burdens?

Can we weep, and feel the gratitude

of all that grounds us, that connects us

to each other? That we are born

for praise and beauty; that this sacredness

and wonder lives inside us?

Can there be a day of witness?

Where we are attentive, see each other

as we are, for all we are? Where we recognize

our kinship, erase our gaps and differences

as insubstantial, a frail illusion?

That we are not tribes and factions

hungry for survival, lost in combat over

our separate truths - but reverent

of that singular truth: that all who live

have pain and suffer. So life is precious.

And we are here together; so never

are we isolated and alone.

Can we have one day of mourning?

One day of listening; one day of gratitude?

One day of respite and renewal,

that builds a common faith?

Let it be today.

And let it begin with me.

Joshua Davies has written poetry diligently and critically for over 30 years, beginning to publish now his kids have graduated college. He works within the produce and organic/sustainable food and restaurant industry, also serving on the board of TC Food Justice – a nonprofit targeting reducing food waste and supplying fresh and sustainable produce to those in need. He’s also on the Board of Gris Literatura, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit promoting poetry access through seminars, poetry readings and classes. Joshua has what he supposes is called an "eclectic" background in professional theatre, dance, martial arts, Chinese medicine and alternative healing. He lives in Minnesota’s Saint Croix River Valley with his wife Melissa and their veritable menagerie of animals.

{slider Remember Your Kindness - Tendai Shaba}

I may forget your name,

But I will remember your kindness.

I may forget your birthday,

But I will remember your kindness.

I may forget your interests, values, and opinions,

But I will remember your kindness.

I may forget your hopes and dreams,

But I will remember your kindness.

Tendai Shaba is a Malawian-born poet, writer and narrator. His work is mostly based on human psychology and personal development. The 31 year old started writing at age 14.

{slider rising as the phoenix - Linda M. Crate}

in my moments

of utter darkness

when the world

feels as if it were upside

down,

i choose a random act

of kindness

to bestow on someone

i love;

because i want to be the light

if i cannot find any—

sometimes we have to reignite

our own candles

in order to shine once more,

sometimes we must shed scared and pale

incantations of who we once were

rising on the mighty wings

of the immortal phoenix;

every time i rise the flames are

more beautiful than before—

kindness always helps me shine with

a more beautiful light than the one i previously was

so i will keep burning even on the darkest days.

Linda M. Crate's works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019). She's also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018). Recently she has published two full-length poetry collections Vampire Daughter (Dark Gatekeeper Gaming, February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (Cyberwit, February 2020).

{slider Silent Witness - Bill Carpenter}

From the back of the school bus

I watch a large boy take a seat

next to a one I hadn’t noticed before.

He throws himself against the sitting boy

as if the bench were solely his

slamming him against the bus interior.

He begins to taunt the boy

who stares out the window

as if it held a means of escape.

From his pocket the bigger boy

pulls out a clothespin, he pinches open

and places on the cheek of his victim.

The boy sits there as his cheek turns

red and then white where the clothespin hangs.

Soon another, then another clothespin

puckers his face, no spot too tender,

too intimate for this adornment,

transforming his subject

into a human fetish.

I can see tears running down his face, making their way

around the barbs of wooden pinchers.

The boy dares not object on threat of a worse fate.

The older boy has a talent for humiliation,

and not wanting his attention

I say nothing.

Hoping some adult will intervene,

but the bus driver’s eyes are averted

to the road,

as are the eyes of the young man

with the faceful of clothespins,

and my own eyes

scanning the roadside

for my stop.

Bill Carpenter’s poetry has appeared in such journals as The Newport Review, Runes, Blueline, Chest, Balancing the Tides, July Literary Press, The Cancer Poetry Project, Surrounded: Living with Islands, Balancing the Tides and the Origami Poems Project. An eleven-year veteran of Ocean State Poets, he has been a member of the ACI team giving voice to inmates in Medium Security. He has four adult children and one grandchild. A life-long Rhode Islander, he lives in Chepachet RI with his partner Emily.

{/slider the cat - Kate LaDew}

you don't flinch

used to pain,

sure the raised hand is for hurting

I bring it down, slow,

smoothing the fur

between your shoulders

your body waits,

I count one two three

before it recognizes the sensation

magically,

your insides begin to rumble,

jagged, unused,

the sound startles you, too,

as we look each other in the eyes

your purring does not stop

for a long perfect moment

as I pick you up, gently, gently

and we go inside

where I suppose

you were always meant to be

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cats Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.

{The Kindest Deed - Sandip Saha}

The more life is unveiling itself

to my ever-inquisitive eyes

the more I find it as a fruit

so marvelous in appearance

but extremely bitter to taste.

All living beings are constantly grappling

and rarely getting air of joy to survive.

The ignorant passersby run for water

in the hot desert path of their livelihood.

The cruel nature laughs at them

and gives them only mirage of hope.

In this deceptive world, I find

the best and most valuable act is

to lend a helping hand to fellow-humans

who are struggling for a breath

in the sinking quicksand.

Helping by food, makes one survive a day

saving a life gives one another chance

to make his life fruitful,

secular education engenders pecuniary soundness,

but the most precious gift is spiritual help

which brings the eternal freedom.

Sandip Saha, a chemical engineer and doctorate (PhD) in metallurgical engineering from India, has received three awards for his scientific work and 33 publications on his scientific research work including three patents. He is a winner of Poetry Matters Project Lit Prize-2018 and has published one collection of poems, "Quest for freedom" available in amazon.com. He is published in poetry journals including North Dakota Quarterly, Peregrine, Door is a Jar, Better Than Starbucks Poetry Magazine, Pif Magazine, The Cape Rock: Poetry, Las Positas Anthology-Havik, Pasadena City College Inscape Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, The Wayne Literary Review, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Ghazal Page all USA, The Criterion, Poets Choice, India and in The Pangolin Review, Mauritius.

{slider The Road, 1932 - Brooks Carver}

Dirty face with dark, hollow eyes,

Looked no more than about twelve.

The breeze brought his sour smell

Drifting through the screen door.

Baggy shredded pants, knees out,

In desperate need of mending.

He wanted work, but food mostly.

Janey made him wash at the well

Then fed him cornbread and cold milk.

The boy finished off the afternoon

Helping Sam cut fence posts.

From the porch she could see

That the strokes of his ax were

Weak, ineffective, feeble.

He spoke not a word during supper

Then fell asleep in his empty pie plate.

Sam carried him to the porch

Wrapped in an old blanket.

A raggedy pair of overalls for a pillow.

Next morning, the porch was empty.

Boy, blanket and overalls

Gone west in the dawn light.

Janey stared down the road.

Somewhere a mamma is

Grieving for her boy, she said.

I hope nobody steals the dollar

I put in his pocket.

Brooks Carver is a farmer, historical fiction writer, poet and photographer. His Reconstruction era novel set in eastern Tennessee, The Angels’ Share, received the Bronze Medal for historical fiction in the annual ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award in 2004. Brooks just finished the sequel called Give My Love to Ivey Rose. At present, he has another manuscript in the works about Confederate Cavalry General John Hunt Morgan entitled, Kentucky Rain. He has published an anthology of his short stories, poetry, and essays called Pilgrim Heart. His poems and short stories have appeared in numerous magazines.

{slider When Your Granny Panties Saved Me - Katie Manning}

One time when I wet my pants at your house, I knew my

mom would be mad. I was too old for this. You washed me

up and put me in a pair of your underwear. The white

briefs were baggy on my little body and made us both laugh

when I ran through the house while we waited for my

clothes to go through your yellowed washer and dryer.

Then you got me dressed before my mom returned from

work. You never said a word. I never forgot. I stood up at

your funeral and told this story.

{slider Window Seat - Fiona Ritchie Walker}

Such joy at getting the window seat,
his camera ready for take off.

I watched the boy unwrap the headphones,
kick off shoes.

The steward guided a couple
down the aisle, to split seats.

Over the tannoy, a warning.
Midnight turbulence on our eight hour flight.

The woman stood,
searching the sea of faces.

Six rows back, her husband,
sitting beside the boy, waved her down.

I saw the camera go back in the bag,
two feet find their matching shoes.

The boy spoke in his neighbour’s ear,
made his way to the central block of seats,

signalled for the wife to grab her purse,
squeeze past her seated neighbours.

Such joy in her face as she dipped her head,
pressing both hands together in thanks,

then walked towards her husband,
where the window seat was waiting.

* tannoy – loud speaker

Fiona Ritchie Walker is a Scot who lives in NE England. A former journalist, she worked for a fair trade organisation for many years, travelling the world to help producers and artisans tell their stories. She encountered many kind people along the way. Her poetry and short fiction are widely published.

{/sliders}

Anthology Contributors

{slider After the Race - L. Shapley Bassen}

He’d lost, you see, and run away

to the woods west of Winnipesaukee,

and run as mist pressed chill upon

fallen leaves and incomplete fairy rings

and run beside pines where birds

and squirrels fled from his cries.

He found a rock locked in the lake

and sat there as the sun, it set,

red into the mercury of the lake

rimmed by black shore and put

his face in his hands and wept.

The white Moon rose regally

in jeweled gown of midnight blue

and he lifted his to her face, her O,

what on the Earth so grieves this one?

He heard her voice with nearby sound

of kitten cry he startled at, alert, recalled,

upon his feet and found an infant

cuddled in cloth half-buried in soft

pine needles, and lifted it against his chest

for warmth to feel the pounding there and ran

toward memory of the light of town.

A long time in the dark and longer strides

of tired legs and thought of the baby

dying in his arms for want of speed,

ran knowing how desperate was

this moment and helpless child in the cold

and hungry night, and then he sensed he did not run

alone but was pursued by wolves who can smell fear

and failure in their prey and so must cut them down

to strengthen those who still will run.

Soothed the baby with steady strides,

rocking motion of his arms. There was the hard

flat surface of a road ahead and lights,

a car – he cried aloud and then it slowed,

taking them faster than any youth could run

to town and hospital. He sat in a room alone

waiting word. Policemen came to tell him

who he’d saved and how the parents wanted

to thank him so. He left before they found him

and ran the roads home to his mother’s house

where she awaited him, sleeping on the couch.

She wakened and said, “Heard you lost the race.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s all right.” “I know,” she said.

Good night both went to their beds

under that October Moon.

A native New Yorker now in RI, L. Shapley Bassen was the First Place winner in the 2015 Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest for 'Portrait of a Giant Squid'. She is s a poetry/fiction reviewer for The Rumpus, etc., also Fiction Editor at Craft Literary, prizewinning, produced, published playwright: originally at Samuel French, now Concord Theatricals; 3x indie-published author novel/story collections, and in 2019, #4, WHAT SUITS A NUDIST, poetry collected works at Clare Songbirds Publishing House. See: www.lsbassen.com

{slider A Mask Can't Hide Your Face - Ellis Jackson}

I can hear your hello when you greet me,

along with morning’s distant chirps.

I can see your smile stretch, crease,

and your jubilant eyes in the later evening.

I can still feel the joy in your calm, steady breathing.

A mask can’t hide the heroic hours

through which you’ve saved both love and life.

No cloth can hide your caring

or filter pure compassion’s spread.

You face the faceless, a bleeding heart beating red.

I see your vital daily journeys,

though I know you fear the streets.

I hear you offer help to total strangers

as you contemplate your own direction.

I can still feel the hope in your genuine connections.

No cloth can cover all the essentials,

so you demand and donate and drive.

Your mask you wear as if superpowered,

powered more by heart than head.

You bite your own hand to feed the unfed.

Feel your worries eventually easing;

while at a distance, you are not alone.

Hear the voices of communities and countries,

coming together, in concert, for a change.

I can still see a silver lining among the new and strange.

A mask can’t hide your every face,

but each one worn remains protective.

Some cloth you drape around your being,

a symbol of selflessness over self-blindness.

No mask wears out in service to kindness.

–

Ellis Jackson Jackson is a freelance creative professional based in New England. When not writing, editing, or marketing, he enjoys reading, drawing, puzzles, music, and wintry weather.

{slider At Produce Junction Early in The Pandemic - Mark Danowsky}

I jump their car

record speed

glad to keep moving

because of the virus

though glad I took time

to do a good deed

in a time of great need

–

Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.

{slider Bedtime Story - Jane Seskin}

Nightly I ask:

did I live this day with integrity?

Was I honest in my relationships?

Kind and patient with those I love?

Fair and non-judgmental

in interactions with strangers?

And, if I did not adhere

to these life-worn principles,

could I, would I, did I

apologize to other, and/or

ask forgiveness of myself?

Jane Seskin LCSW, is a psychotherapist and author. Her poems and essays have been published in national magazines and journals. Her most recent book is Older, Wiser, Shorter: An Emotional Road Trip to Membership in the Senior Class (olderwisershorter.com).

{slider Better Than Words - Vivian Imperiale}

The homeless man
plopped down on the streetcar seat,

looking relieved to have a place to rest.

He covered his face with his hands
and put his head down —
a little privacy in a frantic world.
When he looked up
I offered him a snack.
Instead of speaking,
he covered his face with his hands again

and I was afraid I had been intrusive. But, no...
I watched his fingers form

a lovely heart-shape to thank me.

Vivian Imperiale lives in San Francisco where there is a large homeless population. She cherishes the touching moments some interactions have brought.

{slider Cassie & Josh - Mike McPeek}

Sometimes love is

being okay with her waking you up

at two A.M.

To talk about your pets

the ones that have passed

and where they used to sleep at night

because she couldn’t remember

Mike McPeek and his wife live in Northern California with their two poorly behaved, but relentlessly cute rescued dogs.

{slider feels like a friend - Jeff Ingram}

feels like a friend

injured fawn

I carry home

Several of Jeff Ingram’s haiku have been published in magazines, including Acorn, Mayfly, bottle rockets, Presence, Heron’s Nest, and Frogpond, among others. And harmless poses and enjoying the soil, two microchaps of haiku, were published by the Origami Poems Project in recent years. He currently teaches creative writing courses part-time at an area university. The remainder of the time, he gardens at home and volunteers at Weaver’s Way —a food co-op in Ambler, PA. He lives in Fort Washington with his wife, Kim.

{slider Home - Eva Schlesinger}

I talked with you, my housemates, every day when I was 20
We sat in our co-op kitchen eating popcorn with tamari and nutritional yeast
If I was biking around the lake, I returned to you asking where I had gone,
How was it, how was I, did I want to hang out later
I moved; your voices in my head kept me company
When we reunited this summer, we hadn’t talked in 33 years
You remembered my sincerity,
My yearning to write a book,
And even lines from my stories
Your words took up residence in my heart

Eva M. Schlesinger, author of Remembering the Walker & Wheelchair: poems of grief and healing (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and three dancing girl press titles for which she designed the covers: View From My Banilla Vanilla Villa (2010), Ode 2 Codes & Codfish (2013), and Ninnies Who Whinny (2017), is a recipient of the Literal Latte Food Verse Award. Eva has contributed to ReadersDigest.com, Cooking with The Muse, Changing Harm To Harmony: Bullies & Bystanders Project, The Best of Kindness 2017, public radio, and elsewhere.

{slider I Couldn't Be There - Michael Estabrook}

I sent her flowers
a beautiful arrangement
colorful
carnations, tulips, roses, daffodils . . .

What else could I do?
She sponge-bathed my mom
changed her Depends
called the chaplain just in time
just before the last breath came
eyes closed
mouth opened wide
body struggling one last time
before not.

Your body knows when it’s had enough
when it’s time to move on.

“There is a heaven isn’t there Michael?
I will see Kerry again won’t I?”

Yes of course, Ma
Kerry and Dad, your sisters, Jean, Bill
Kay, Elmer, Aunt Queenie . . . your mom.

Making it to 92 is not for the faint-hearted
good thing she was a “tough old bird”
good thing her caregiver was there
making sure she didn’t fall out of bed
giving her sips of water
morphine when she needed it.

Yes of course I sent her flowers
what else could I do?

Michael Estabrook small press poet since the 1980s striving always for greater clarity and concision rendering language more succinct and precise a Sisyphean adventure for sure. Retired now writing more and working more outside just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany is a recent collection (The Poetry Box, 2019).

{slider Jamaica Appreciation - Matthew James Friday}

Phoning Delta to cancel a plane ticket.
Have to say my surname. No choice.
Tastes of self-doubt tickles the tongue.
I sigh as I say Friday, expecting
the normal reaction. The half-awake
man, mimicking a computer, ripples
with soft laughter and speeds up.
“That’s a great name, brother, great.
I’m always thinking about Fridays, always.”
We compare notes on the World Cup,
England’s misery, hopefully third place.
That other English occupation, the weather,
deserves comment. Stunning blue sky
here in White Salmon, WA. Jamaica?
“Very sweeeet here in Montego Bay.”
We wish each other well, ticket refunded,
name accepted, Jamaica appreciated.

Matthew James Friday has published in numerous international magazines and journals, including, recently: All the Sins (UK), The Blue Nib (Ireland), Acta Victoriana (Canada), and Into the Void (Canada). The microchaps, All the Ways to Love, Waters of Oregon, and The Words Unsaid ( Origami Poems Project USA). Website: matthewfriday.weebly.com

{slider Nice Meeting You - William Broderick}

I find kindness erotic.
Common courtesy can spawn fantasies of
Domestic partnership,
Adoption of children,
Reconciliation with parents.
I have always deep-ended on the kindness of strangers.
The list of attributes that I find sexually viable is endless:
Good haircuts,
Glowing skin,
Clever clothes,
Clothes that fit (what is more clever than fit?),
Men reading Penguin Classics in the subway,
And, of course, New Yorker readers: I brandish my issue as

though it were a bandana tucked into a back pocket,
Declaring my fetish.
But all of these are stillborn without kindness, in the eyes,

on the lips: “Thank you.” “Excuse me.”
“Have a good day.” “Nice meeting you.”
Said as if meant.

William Broderick is an actor and writer whose essays have appeared in "Off the Rocks," and "Blood and Thunder" (2017, 2019 and 2020).

{slider Send - Laura Anderson}

I type the words

into the pale-yellow window

of the night-muted screen

and press Send

It’s been at least

eight years, maybe ten

and our last communication

was not pleasant ---

Now that the message

has flown

from the west coast to the east

in a matter of seconds

a wave of panic rises

in me

I open the window and lean out

the willow tree is full of crows

cawing at a racoon family,

mother, father, and

two fresh offspring

marching in a

a determined line

to the compost bin

I sit down in front of the screen

to wait

hoping for nothing

hoping for something

It only took

a global crisis and

a mass murder in

your hometown

for me to stop being

the good one

long enough to

forgive you.

Laura Anderson was born in Okanagan territory and has been a grateful visitor on Lək̓ʷəŋə and W̱SÁNEĆ lands (Vancouver Island) for best part of her entire life. She is an artist, mother, and grandmother currently working at Camosun College during the day, and re-entering the world of poetry and memoir at night. Current thematic interests include hauntings, ancestral wounding (and healings) and the hidden bounty in crises. Her passions include natural light, spirits of the land, and creatures of the sea.

{slider Sit - Mary Grace van der Kroef}

Sit in my kitchen

In my tiny bit of world

Sit at my table

Around a cup, fingers curled.

Sit there in silence

Listen to my heart.

Sit there with tears,

Tell me why you fell apart.

Sit down with me

I promise I will listen

Sit now with me,

Let both our tears glisten.

Sit, be assured

You're not in the wrong place.

Rest, as you sit.

May my table be your safe space.

Mary Grace van der Kroef was born and raised in Northwestern Ontario. Her love of writing and poetry started at age 14. She is also a wife, and mother to 3 beautiful children. She currently resides in the Niagara Region.

{slider The memory of kindness - Heather Cameron}

Miss Hannah of the long black hair,

Mini-dress and the knee-high white boots.

Sitting on the mat at her feet,

Alive with tales of Julian, Dick, George and Anne,

And Timmy the dog, of course.

The temptation to lay your cheek against

The white vinyl-clad calves.

The mystery of a black nylon line

Running between skirt and boot top.

The tears one morning, the rings

On her fingers chafing her frozen hands,

As she rubbed the blood back to life.

You didn’t know you would say,

This is the first memory of kindness.

Just as you didn’t know how to tell

The nurse that sat beside your chemo chair

Reminded you of a Cornish coastline,

And children, strong and brave,

Defeating danger.

Heather Cameron is a poet, short story and creative nonfiction writer. Her publications include: the short story, "Change" in HorseDreams, Spinifex Press, Melbourne, 2004; the illness narrative, "Different but the Same; Young people talk about living with serious illness", Lothian Books, Melbourne, 1998 and the poem, "Breast Cancer Surgeon 2" in the British Journal of Medical Practitioners (BJMP), August 2020. Born and raised in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Heather now lives in Victoria, Australia. She is currently a PhD candidate at Deakin University. Her thesis is entitled, "Cancer Poetry: responding to loss through autopathography and elegy."

{slider The Mojave, January 1988 - Bruce Pemberton}

Twenty-five months in the Army

and who would put a kid like me

in charge of a six million dollar

tank? I’ve got a crew of tragically

obedient soldiers, all teen-age, one

who marries his sixteen-year-old

second cousin and another who

rides his skateboard to first form-

ation every morning. They’re all

good kids, but most assuredly

children.

We’ve been training in the desert

for two weeks, in cold, sleet, wind,

and constant maneuvering, attack,

defend, attack again, with an hour

of sleep a day that comes in fits and

starts, until, by design, it strips off

any sheen of humanity that’s left,

leaving us fearsome and primal.

Our first sergeant radios for us to

pull back from our firing line on a

snowy hilltop and ground guide

ourselves down to a company AO

for diesel, hot chow, and mail. We

start to back up when we find an

infantry squad, wet and shivering,

trying to dry their boots, gear, and

uniforms, in the heat of our tank’s

searing exhaust. I radio back and get

us an extra half hour, so the soaked

grunts can dry everything and get warm.

I have enough left of myself, at least,

to do that.

Bruce Pemberton is a retired high school English teacher, tennis coach, and Gulf War veteran. His work has appeared in SNAPDRAGON, PALOUSE JOURNAL, NORTHERN JOURNEYS, THE REDNECK REVIEW OF LITERATURE, THIRD WEDNESDAY, SKY ISLAND JOURNAL, FOLIATE OAK, AMERICAN LIFE IN POETRY, DUCK LAKE JOURNAL, THE WILD WORD, RIGOROUS, STREETLIGHT MAGAZINE, PAROUSIA, iTEACH LITERARY MAGAZINE, HEART OF FLESH, RUNE, CAPSULE STORIES, and the anthologies, IN TAHOMA'S SHADOW, and SPOKANE WRITES. He lives on the Palouse, in rural eastern Washington.

{slider The Offering - Martin Willitts Jr}

He went to where vines were heavy gifts

in hardening, crisp fall-tipped air,

hands slippery with need,

returning with squirming, marble-sized

purple clusters, spilling loose as poems.

His breath halted-stumbled unevenly

curling up the hill, straining like a field horse

yanking a plow against the grain of the land.

He heaved clear, definite stars.

He stilled the room with his bounty,

while the wind expired outside.

He placed the grapes in a porcelain bowl

painted with a ring of yellow roses.

He fed one, slowly, into his mother’s mouth,

encouraging her to eat.

Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 19 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent book is "Unfolding Towards Love" (Wipf and Stock, 2020). He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018.

{slider Worm - Katherine Pryor}

A worm wiggled on the wet sidewalk.

My son dropped low and stopped to talk.

“Why is he wriggling that way?”

I knelt beside and could not say,

“He may have fallen from a beak

Or enjoyed a puddle that sprung a leak.”

I did not want my boy to worry,

Just grabbed a stick in no great hurry.

We set worm gently in the dirt

Where he could safely nurse his hurt.

The lesson taught was not of threats,

Mistakes, or near-fatal upsets.

Merely, if you want to improve someone’s day

Rescue a worm who’s lost his way.

Katherine Pryor is the author of the children's books "Bea's Bees", "Sylvia's Spinach", and "Zora's Zucchini". Her newest book, "Hello, Garden!", will be published in Spring 2021. She lives in Seattle.

{/sliders}

All Poets (Finalists & others) included in the 'The Best of Kindness 2020' anthology receive a Contributor's copy.

Anthology is available on Amazon.com

"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind;

and the third is to be kind." - Henry James

−

The Origami Poems Project is so very grateful to our Judge and Artist/Illustrator!

Our Finalist Judge Julia Meylor	Our Cover & Interior Artist Lauri Burke

Published poet, essayist & freelance editor	Published poet, artist, illustrator

Both Julia and Lauri are familiar with the nuances of kindness...

Some of the Interior Illustrations done by Lauri Burke

We are a domestic non-profit corporation

registered in the state of Rhode Island with a 501(c)3 designation.

Since 2009 we have been sharing 'free' poetry in the form of micro-chapbooks

that are available to download, print & share from the website.

Donations, gratefully appreciated, may be sent to the address below.

(Kindly make your check payable to Origami Poems Project)

Origami Poems Project

1948 Shore View Drive

Indialantic, FL 32903

PLEASE consider a Donation through Paypal

♦ The Origami Poems Project is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit ♦
We exist solely through your generosity

With PayPal you can make a donation with your credit card.

PayPal registration is not required.

Pushcart Nominations 2019-20

Pushcart Micro covers 2019 for Webpage

Our Pushcart Prize Nominations - 2019/20

Alex Stolis Postcards from The Knife Throwers Wife 2019

August 1 - St. John, N.B. Canada - Alex Stolis (from "Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife”)

August 1 - St. John, N.B. Canada

I keep all your letters in a cigar box under our
bed next to grandmother’s wedding dress. This is
a city of ghosts of bars of brown pastures. You
send me postcards from all the places I’ll never
go. They are on a map I do not own. I am left
with ink on fingers, smudges of black on white
on an unpunctuated loss. Truth is something
only paper can be witness to. I'll never wear that
dress. Instead, I'll meet you where the earth is
covered in blues and greens.

•

Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis and has had poems published in numerous journals. Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, continues the tale started in his microchap 'Postcards from the Knife-Thrower' where the poet uses the Al G. Barnes Circus Route from 1934 which began its season March 31 in San Diego, made a circuit through the United States and Canada and ended the season October 29 in El Centro, Ca. Each part of this series consists of one month from the season, April-July. The intention is for the work, as a whole, to be a narrative; a novella in chapbook/prose form.

♦

Sanjida Yasmin CVR Bickering Echoes MAY 2019

karma lounge - Sanjida Yasmin (from "bickering echoes”)

karma lounge

though my memory might be dim,
I remember the red lounge,
the walk back, him. I remember his last
name spelled in tonic,
& the evening moving on a whim
& Bleecker Street
turned into a stream, where
lights of 1st Avenue limned.
his black leather jacket, his military
short hair, chestnut eyes of sin.

•

Sanjida Yasmin is a poet, painter and a professional educator living in the Northeast. Sanjida earned her B.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the City University of New York. Sanjida’s poetry has been published in numerous journals, including Pink Panther Magazine, Peacock Journal, The Promethean, Nebo, Panoplyzine, Poetry in Performance, Anomaly, and Triggerfish Critical Review.

♦

Martin Willitts Jr CVR In the Moment 2 2019

A Parade of Male Cardinals - Martin Willitts Jr (from "In the Moment”)

Cover art (background) by Lauri Burke with collage effect by Jan K

A Parade of Male Cardinals

It is a ritual, waiting to be chosen
by the only female. Red, red, red
speak their bodies of scarlet sunsets.

She uses her discerning eye.
The goddess finesses boredom.
So many to select, but only one to pick.

So much questing and discovery.
It is not as easy as one might think.
The air is breathlessly waiting.

Everything else is patience, rejection,
disappointment. A cascade of red waits.
I believe I was chosen exactly like this.

•

Martin Willitts Jr's latest (2019) poetry books include: Unfolding Toards Love (WipfandStock.com) and The Temporary World (Blue Light Press - on Amazon, too). Also: Coming Home Celebration (FutureCycle Press, 2019), How to Be Silent (FutureCycle Press, 2016), and Dylan Thomas and the Writer's Shed (FutureCycle Press, 2017). Martin has won numerous prizes including the 2012 Big River Poetry Review's William K. Hathaway Award; 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; 2013 "Trees" Poetry Contest; 2014 Broadsided award; 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; and, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor's Choice.

♦

Susan Moorhead CVR Lost and Found NOV DEC 2019

Things that are lost - Susan Moorhead (from "Lost and Found”)

Cover photo by author

Things that are lost

My heart.
Two souls.
My favorite huarache sandals.
A sketchbook in France.
Innocence, and the desire to sin.
One earring only.
The belief in consequences.
Two parents, innumerable relatives.
My passport.
The ability to sleep.
The sweetness of my children
when young.
Letters and photographs shredded.
Thinking there's enough time.

•

Susan Moorhead writes poetry and stories and works as a children's librarian in New York. She's happy to have managed to always be surrounded by books. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and been nominated three times for a Pushcart prize. Her chapbook, The Night Ghost, was published with Finishing Line Press. Recent work includes a short story in The Westchester Review, poems in Heartwood, Woman Around Town, Breadcrumbs, and Poems-for-All.

♦

Tricia Marcella Cimera CVR Go Slow Leonard Cohen NOV 2019

plum poem – Tricia Marcella Cimera (from “Go Slow, Leonard Cohen”)

Cover art by Lauri Burke

plum poem
for Leonard Cohen

you didn’t create
the tree
that was you

but you made
the poems
that fell

like plums
from your branches:
all purple

in the long grass
where god
is found

•

Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Her work appears in many diverse places — from the Buddhist Poetry Review to the Origami Poems Project. Her poem ‘The Stag’ won first place honors in College of DuPage’s 2017 Writers Read: Emerging Voices contest. Tricia lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois, in a town called St. Charles, by a river named Fox, with a Poetry Box in her front yard. (Find The Fox Poetry Box on Facebook and Twitter - @FoxPoetryBox)

♦

Andrena Zawinski CVR Drifiting Sands OCT final 2019

Triolet for the Return of Spring - Andrena Zawinski (from "Drifting Sands”)

Cover photo by author

Triolet for the Return of Spring

So much to love about it,
the again again again of it,
the breeze on pampas grass seaside.
So much to love about it
the riots of wildflowers, return of green,
the singing birds, the simple daily beat.
So much to love about it,
the again again again of it.

•

Andrena Zawinski's poetry collections are Landings (Kelsay Books 2017), Something About (Blue Light Press 2009), Traveling in Reflected Light (Pig Iron Press 1995). Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. Her Blood Moon and Other Haibun microchap is from the Origami Poems Project (2018). She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.

♦

Pushcart Prize logo

All work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

Kindness 2017 Contest

2017 Kindness Contest

(December 15, 2016 - March 5, 2017)

Many poems are linked below - Cover art by Lauri Burke

2nd Annual OPP Kindness Contest Results

1st Place: I hear her voice calling by Daun Daemon

2nd Place: Hands by Frank Dullaghan
3rd Place: A Kindness Bestowed by Lynne Burnett

Honorable Mentions:
Hospital Sounds by Joyce Schmid
Heroics by Maryanne Hannan

Editor's Appreciation:
Don’t be sad, Chrysostom by Dmitry Blizniuk
(translated from Russian by Sergey Gerasimov)

New this year:

Pixie/Wendy Selection for poem of Creaturely Appreciation

Morning Traffic by William Masters

The Finalists:

Kisses Not Snow by Judith Ellen Sanders * Indian Blanket Toss by Marilyn Sequoia *Grace by Karen Haskell

Grocery Boy by Lynne Burnett- Missing You by Eva Schlesinger
Tenderly by Christina Sng - Kindness by Design by Brandon Marlon * Forgiveness - Eileen Mattmann

bird banding - Bill Sullivan * Invitation to a Kindness Conspiracy by Wilda Morris

Journey by J V Birch * Daydreaming by Soo Young Yun
Her Telephone Call by Carl "Papa" Palmer * Comfort Dog by Deidra Greenleaf Allan

The Nurse on the Bus by Wilda Morris * Kindness: A Haiku Cycle by SuzAnne Cole
Flash-Flood by Martin Willits, Jr.

***

Also in this collection:

A Random Act, A Most Welcome Gift - Nina Sudhakar * A World I Would Love - Ashley Phimphanh

Be Kind to One Another - Patricia McAlpine * Ron Yazinski - Chua Bo An * Claws and Wings - Clint King

Dancer - Mary Wehner* Dealing with the World - Lawrence J. Krips* Emily's Message - Laurie Kolp

Grateful - Mark Danowsky * Harriet - James Penha * If Kindness were a Shoe - Nancy Jasper

If Life is a Country Road - Austin Davis * Jerome Gagnon - Meeting in the Field

Julia Meylor Simpson - A blessed long life in a small town * Kindness - David Miller

Kindness - Do Not Devalue Anyone- Lilly White * Kindness, did you say? - Juliana Anderson

Lenore at Last - Julie Wenglinski * more light than dark - Linda M. Crate *Number 2 Bus - David Olsen

Other - Wayne-Daniel Berard * Pillows - Mary K. O'Melveny * Raw Absolutes - Matthew James Friday

Running Log Entry - Dennis Trujillo * Second String Roses - Barbara Boothe Loyd

Self-Acceptance - m.nicole. r.wildhood * Somewhere on Earth - Wasan Qasim

The Everyday Stuff - Sam Barbee * The Farmer’s Steady Hands - Peg Quinn

The Jehovah’s Lady - Janis Haag * The Karma of Kindness - Helen Burke * To Spice: - Mary Wlodarski

The Kindness of Strangers - Bill Carpenter * The Nice Man - Mary S. Taylor * Tuyo - Kate O’Kula

Universal Order, Alicia Cole * Visits with Florence - Carol DeCanio

Why he’d keep the fish alive - Armin Tolentino

Thanks to all who submitted - We received over 300 entries

Winning poets received a copy of the Anthology (62 poems)

(published via Amazon - The Best of Kindness 2017)

* All anthology poets were sent a special link for 'editor's courtesy' purchases *

Thank you to everyone who submitted their poetry.

All submissions came with Kindness and we are better for them.

The Editors

Kindness Contest 2016

2016 Kindness Contest

(Open from Dec. 15, 2015 - Mar. 31, 2016)

The Winning Poems

& their Poets

Click on above covers for the single-page Origami micro-chapbooks (PDF)

Winning Poems

Honorable Mentions

Editors Appreciation

Angel of Kindness

It never rains in
Southern California—
but man, it pours.
I’m at the toy store
when a curtain of water
hits, laced with hail.
No other shoppers,
so the clerk and I go
under the awning
to watch. We laugh
and laugh, there’s
nothing else to do.
Back inside, he leans
on the counter, says,
It used to rain like this
in Vietnam—two or
three times a day.
You couldn’t tell
which way the bullets
were coming from.
We are quiet.
You never got dry,
then, I say. No, and
it got so you didn’t
care anymore.
For a moment
he’s far gone,
down a dark road—
but he comes to,
resuming his life
as an angel of kindness.
He hands a balloon
to a crying baby,
and finds a reversible
doll for my niece’s
birthday—Peter Pan
and Captain Hook,
two sides of the coin
that was wagered
in his name.
•
Cynthia Anderson © 2016
- Winner, First Place
Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

- - -

Faith in Us

Sometimes I choose
a spot on a quiet page
and write down
something unusual
such as the story of
how everyone
on a street
in Chinatown
walked carefully
while a woman chased
hundreds of tiny turtles
after they got loose
from a tank
in her market stall.
Not one turtle
was harmed.
And this mercy
lifts my spirits,
reminds me that
acts of kindness
appear like moths
circling our porch lights
drawn to the light.
•
Jeffrey Johannes © 2016
- Winner, Second Place
Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

- - -

The Difference Kindness Makes

If my father was alive
I would take you to meet him
in our humble abode in El Monte
He’d be sitting in a sofa
a stack of newspapers on his lap
He’d be looking up behind
thick myopic lenses
his eyes wide and good humored
He would nod his head and smile at you
Not scowl at you like my sister does

If my father was alive
you and I might be cruising down
the highway with the windows down
the soft afternoon breeze
would brush against our faces
as we head to a Chinese buffet restaurant
where we can eat fish fillet and sushi

If my father was alive
I may not have a nice car
or more money for clothes
but I might be slightly happier
for he would nod his head and smile at you
Instead of scowling at you like my sister does

•

- Winner, Third Place

Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

Content

Outside a restaurant in Chivay, Peru
the short-haired yellow dog
gazes furtively up at you
and away,
brings her head and brown eyes
down shyly, yet hopefully.

Hola, perro, you say.
Orbs raise, blink.
Tail wags, thumping the stucco wall
where you lean.
Oh, you’re a good dog.
You’re such a good dog.

She sits, raises her paw,
presses your leg with kindness in return.

Confirming friendship,
she lays down, rests her chin
on your shoe,
content to be near you and rest.
•
Marilyn Zelke-Windau © 2016
- Honorable Mention
Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

- - -

Saint of the Day

In class she knits prayer shawls.
Smooth yarn rolls between her fingers
like rosary beads. Each stitch
a wish for recovery from sickness
heartache, addiction. By noon

she is halfway there. The instructor
frowns at her, blind to the work
of her soul.
•
Jan Chronister © 2016

- Honorable Mention
Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

- - -

Holstein

I was also a child.
And also had one,
and another a year after,
and another,
and could not touch

even one.
Had I been born into a kinder
world, my milk would have been
for them. No one would have pulled
my children from my body

to crates, their lungs
full of loss.
Had I lived in a kind world,
long stretches of me
would have weaved
in the stretches of the world,

my natural-born children
taking in the milk I created
for them, not for a trade
of strangers,
and my life would have been mine
and theirs
as long as my body wanted life.
Child, put your head where our kind
is never allowed: at my flank,
at the great spill of me. Smell me
from your bent neck.
•
Gretchen Primack © 2016
- Editor’s Appreciation
Origami Poems Kindness Contest 2016

We've published an anthology of 41 selected poems (see below of list of participants):

The Best of Kindness is available for $9.50 + S&H on Amazon.

Cover image by poet/artist, Lauri Burke, "Rainy Cherry Blossoms"

Alphabetical List of Poems & their Poets in this Anthology:

All I have - Carol Ayer * Angel of Kindness – Cynthia Anderson * Arms Wide Open – Bill Carpenter *

Bedtime – Helen D’Ordine * Camellias – Sandra Anfang * Content – Marilyn Zelke-Windau *

Dogs and Cats and Places – Frank Beltrano * Duplexity – Tammi Truax * Errand – Joely Johnson Mork *

Every Moment Passes And Every Moment Stays Still – Martin Willitts Jr. * Faith in Us – Jeffrey Johannes *

February – Marguerite Keil Flanders * Hearts – Joan Leotta * Her Act of Loving Kindness – Roz Levine *

Holstein – Gretchen Primack * Is It Natural To Be Kind – George Such * Kindness – M.J. Iuppa * Kindness – Peter Bergquist *

Language Like Medicine – Ann Kestner * Left You In the Dark – Chris Toto Zaremba * Lesson – James Penha
Make Offerings – Carol Aronoff * Morning Gift – Mary C. Rowin * New Childhood – Helen Burke *

Ode to an Eleven Year Old Boy – Ronnie Hess * Rosewood & Inlays – silent lotus * Saint of the Day – Jan Chronister
Shut-Ins – Caroline Johnson * Taking it Back – Bryanna Licciardi 8 The Difference Kindness Makes – Jackie Chou

The Ice – Padma Prasad * The Poem I Should Have Written – Charlene Neely * The Possum – Marybeth Rua-Larsen
The River – Maryann Russo * The Untouchable – Susan Furst * Two Kinds – D.G. Geis 8Whatchamacallit – Shittu Fowara *

What do you say? – David Allen Sullivan * What if – Elizabeth S. Wolfe (with special permission)
When She Cried – Christina Sng * Years Later – Mary McCarthy

Thank you to everyone who submitted their poetry.

All submissions came with Kindness and we are better for them.

The Editors

The Blizzard Contest

THE BLIZZARD: AN ORIGAMI POEMS PROJECT CONTEST

This Contest is now closed. We are grateful for every entry.

Visit Our Contest Winner's Page Here!!!

Fellow Poets, Writers, Artists and Folks who are just curious about what this title all about.

Please look at the two pieces of art work displayed below and send us a poem inspired by either piece.
- Only rule is that it has to fit the Origami Poems Project format (see the "non-rules" below) or we will sadly disqualify the entry -

Send to: origami.submission(at)gmail.com with BLIZZARD POEM (House/Horse) in the subject line.
We will pick 5 poems to go with each ARTwork and publish Two Very Special OPP Micro-chapbooks.

Winners will be announced in the March Newsletter (sign-up link here)
You do not have to be a “poet” to submit… Just inspired…
Deadline: February 23rd Midnight

4 Horses by Jason Hancock Winter House by Pd Lietz

There is no fee for this contest but your submission is priceless to us. Our prize is also priceless - and we’ll send 5 copies of the book in which your poem appears!

Imagine receiving a snail-mail of an Origami micro-chabook with your poem enclosed – how rare & exciting!

Non-Rules Rules

1. Poem should try to be around 23 lines long including Title & Spaces. (Reasonable aside: For something we just can't live without, we'll consider just over 23 lines. Is it wise to state this? Where is poetic justice these days!)

2. Poem’s Line Length should be around 47 characters (which includes spaces between letters). If you must have that 48th character we will try to accomodate but remember, this isn't a glass slipper contest so please try to don the 47-character footwear.

3. Poet may submit one poem per image in the body of an email or Word doc. Please tell us to which image your poem applies. Oh, so you think this is a ridiculous request? We really don't want to ask & if we do it's only because we feel a surge of kindness. So, do us proud and be kind.

4. Both unpublished and previously published pieces are welcome. If a piece was published elsewhere, ask nicely for the relevant permissions to reprint. For all selected poems, copyright will revert to the authors. Yada yada.

5. Email must reach us by Midnight (East Coast USA Time) on February 23, 2013. Email submissions to: origami.submission(at)gmail.com - @ for (at)

♦

These carefully selected poems will be announced on our website, our Facebook page, and in our March Newsletter.

Oh, you can opt out of the Newsletter later if you want and we'll still like you... Maybe

There is no fee for this Contest

Thank you so much... The Origami Poems Project