*The Ronald Wardall Prize has been discontinued, but each year the editors will solicit a chapbook to be published as part of the Ronald Wardall Chapbook Series.
The 2010 Ronald Wardall Prize
3rd annual Ronald Wardall Poetry Chapbook Contest
Winner received publication by Rain Mountain Press
Winner
Jim Cory, No Brainer Variations
First Runner Up
Flower Conroy, For the Economy of Languagification
Second Runner Up
Patrick Moran, Harry Lime Variations: Poems for the Radio
Finalists
Jean Hollander, Making Their Own Monuments
Kara Dorris, Untitled Film Still Museum
Ellen LaFleche, Workers' Rites
Misty Dyan Batson, Dear James, Does the Goldfish Miss Me?
Semi-Finalists
Tina Egnoski, Exotic Tropicals
Jill McCabe Johnson, Animus Donandi
Dion Farquhar, Shift
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The 2009 Ronald Wardall Prize
Winner
Penelope Scambly Schott, Under Taos Mountain
Runner Up
John Goode, Graduating from Eternity
Finalists
Millicent Borges Accardi, Sinatra’s Lemons
Alan Catlin, Terror in Brooklyn
Kara Dorris, Elective Affinities
Wendy Hoffman, The Mauve Room
Ruth Moon Kempher, Gardening, on a Tilted Planet
Semi-Finalists
Judith Hemschemeyer, Cul-de-sac
Jean Hollander, The Cold Sea
Judith Pacht, St. Louis Suite
Liz Robbins, Amy In/Flames
Becky Dennison Sakellariou, Sudden Space Between Bodies
Honorable Mentions
Lou Amyx, The Bracelet
E.K. Mortenson, Dreamer or the Dream
R.G. Thielen, Orphan Harvest
Stephanie Wang, Silent Liberation
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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 included one of his chapbooks in their issue.