2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Results
Better late than never, and just before May (at least in my time zone). It's time to reveal the results of the 2022 November PAD Chapbook Challenge. Once again, there were more than 80 entries this time around from all around the country and the world.
As usual, I saw a good mix of familiar and new-to-me names. And yes, it was all a fun read and incredibly difficult to make a decision once I got it down to the Top 11.
In this post, I share the winning chapbook and poet, along with three finalists and seven honorable mentions.
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Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).
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This year's winning manuscript is Measuring By Echoes, by Cherise Mabb!
What I really enjoyed about this collection is that it felt very much like a collection, complete with a framing device of two poems titled: "Mythology I" and "Mythology II." And while I know I personally tend to favor sound over meaning, I loved this collection because of the stories found here.
Congratulations, Cherise!
Here are a few poems from Measuring By Echoes:
“Silkworm Moth,” by Cherise Mabb
I am the moth, the silkworm moth, granddaughter of the ageless moon.
My sisters and I, we are tiny
fingertip-angles crowned in feathers
soft as snow, delicate seraphim.
When you wear our silk –
silk from a far-off land carried on hooves a thousand miles to you! –
you clothe yourselves in the veils with which we clothe our daughters
as they transform from children into the winged women of the moon.
With their mouths they spin a single thread
(a single sentence, a single song)
and with this strand of a thousand yards they chart the impossible path
from what they are (the change already rattling inside their bodies)
to what they will be – a winged thing! –
and there they hide in the midst of metamorphosis.
But daughters of men, you have decided
that our silver filament of moonlight is worth more
than metamorphosis.
"Boil the worms in the vats of industry
but do not harm the silk."
For what are daughters?
We can always have more daughters.
Daughters of men, you clothe yourselves in silk and fancy yourselves flowers
blind to what you have stolen,
blind to the empty spaces in the night sky
that should have been filled with wings.
“Forsaken Love Letters,” by Cherise Mabb
They might as well have been prayers.
They might as well have been white petals
caught by the wind and flung up above the roof –
full of a springtime both charming and imaginary,
breathing upon the soul with the unexpected breath
of apple-blossom,
a pressed flower found between pages
trying to live again.
“Unexpected,” by Cherise Mabb
The echo of beauty breaks open the last gate of the soul
and Sorrow, chained to the fortress walls, at last is freed
and proceeds, not to burn the castle to the ground
as we had feared, but instead
finds Desire where she sits in the corner alone
and asks, "Would you like to dance again?"
“And the Last Breath Still Hangs in the Air,” by Cherise Mabb
The bull elk,
the strength of muscle and sinew and bone, hundreds of pounds
of lithe and perfect flesh, all gathered together, arrested
as the bullet tears through the heart, the powerful heart –
all those years, and this is the last –
the strength of this
lord of the forest
caught, wrenched, pulled
out of the great old lungs from which sprang
the haunting bugles of so many autumns,
through the flaring
of his dark, soft nostrils
the cloud of his last breath
fills the air,
surrounds his antler-crowned heads as he falls,
spasms
is still
and the last breath still hangs in the air.
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Again, congratulations, Cherise!
But wait! There’s more!
In addition to Cherise's winning manuscript, I selected three finalists that gave Measuring By Echoes a run for its money:
- Against Flesh and Blood, by Emily Skulmoski
- The Medicine of the Story: Songs for the Fool, by Beth Weaver-Kreider
- Waiting on Her Wings, by De Jackson
Congratulations to the finalists!
And finally, here's a list (in no particular order) of honorable mentions:
- A Passel of Sonnets: Fourteen Types, by Barb Peters
- Imprints, by Janet Benlien Reeves
- Flying Lessons, by Felix Flauta Jr.
- Garden Lessons, by Candace Kubinec
- Give You Wings: poems of grief, by Julie S. Paschold
- This Is Today, by Taylor Graham
- Season of Solace, by J. Lyn Sheridan
Congratulations to all the honorable mentions! And to everyone who put in the time to write poems in November and assemble and submit collections in December and January. Great job!
