September 2, 2008

To All Who Entered Rain Mountain’s 2008
Ronald Wardall Prize competition:
 
Thank you!
 
It was our pleasure to sit with your manuscripts coming from everywhere in the USA. After reading literary journal submissions for years we expected there to be a great variation in quality between chapbook entries. This was not the case. We were surprised by the stiff competition. So many stunning voices--polished, raw, quirky, idiosyncratic, impressionistic, formal, experimental, powerful evocations.  
 
 Many of you will be contacted requesting individual poems to be published in Skidrow Penthouse.
 
 
Best wishes,
The Editors, Rain Mountain Press

The 2008 Ronald Wardall Prize

Winner
David Chorlton, The Lost River

Runner Up
Maryhelen Snyder, Drawn

Finalists
E.R. Carlin, The Human Winter
Kara Dorris, Elective Affinities
Alan Elyshevitz, Frail Demons
Wendy Hoffman, Hechshur
Penelope Scambly-Schott, The Colloquy of Magpie and Tia

Semi-Finalists
Paula Brancato, World of the Married Woman
Lois Marie Harrod, On the Nature of Inspiration on a Bad Day
Ellen LaFleche, With One Lung
Judith Pacht, User’s Guide
K. Alma Peterson, Light Metal Romance

Honorable Mentions
Juliet Cook, Mounting Sting
Ginger Knowlton, a whole swimming pool full of god
Ann Lauinger, St. Spider
Susanna Rich, The Drive Home
John Vick, Chaperons of a Lost Poet in America
Susan Yount, House on Fire 

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MEMORIES OF FLIGHT FROM BED
Ronald Wardall

The Amazon Valley spreads her sea
         green legs, cut and scarred
                        by the Amazon, Tapajos, Urubu
                                    Madeira, Negro, Solimoes, Japura.
 
But now the dark cave of the room is right
         though my absurd cold hangs on like a loose tooth,
                        and after three years I still keep the TV on
                                    in the next room.
 
The rain forest tears at the light as if it were raw meat,
         the sudden black sky’s quick lit by piranha
                        lightning, while the air crackles, spits,
                                    sparks, stares, a cat eyed night.
 
Pointed yellow tongues fifty miles long lick the white
         hot wings, Beelzebub in love, the rock-jerk-
                        snap of coupling
                                    sky and fire and smoking metal.
 
The closed door room quiet as a sleeping cat beneath
         the jellied sound of the TV, becomes theatre,
                        and though bones crack in the stillness,
                                    the broken hands wear gloves.
                                   
 
Ronald Wardall (1937-2006) lived not only as a poet, he was a farmer, desk clerk, carpenter, bridge builder, salesman, lighting technician, actor, agent for the Army Security Agency, travel agent, publicity agent, educator, fund raiser, administrator, union leader, lobbyist and editor.  His publications include Poetry, Field, Swink, Mudfish, and Skidrow Penthouse, among others.  His work was included in Random House’s POEMS OF NEW YORK. He was the recipient of the Slipstream Prize, the Dana Prize and a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship.  His EYES OF A VERTICAL CUT was published in 2001 by Slipstream Press. He left behind a library of four thousand books and four poetry collections in manuscript.  Skidrow Penthouse will include one of his chapbooks in their next issue.

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