Saw Palm: florida literature and art
  • Home
    • About The Journal
    • Masthead
  • Library
    • Florida Literary Links
    • Gallery
    • Interviews
    • Reviews
    • Past Issues
    • Poetry Contest
  • Places to Stand
  • Subscribe
  • Submit
Picture

2022 POETRY CONTEST


Congratulations to our 2022 Winners!


suckerfish
                mutualist 

By Alan Bern 
 
when I ride our Devil Ray 
with a Remora partner  
down we travel our suction  
increasing as we descend 
what a fabulous spinplunge  
down beside rocky Sea Mounts 
unlike those skyview dreamtrips 
this view is open water 
and when we reach bottomshelf  
and the fishing for plankton  
is finished up from the cold 
our Devil Ray travels quick  
to embrace the surface warmth 
again float atop even 
jump up and out full pregnant 
with a pup rippling under  
her skin ready to be born 
we hold on for future tours  
we fit so well here side- 
by-side to our Devil Ray’s 
amazed and ample face  

​

Bio: ​Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern has published three books of poems. He is also a published/exhibited photographer and is the cofounder with artist/printer Robert Woods of the press/publisher Lines & Faces, linesandfaces.com. Among recent awards: honorable mention for Littoral Press Poetry Prize (2021); first runner-up for Raw Art Review’s Mirabai Prize for Poetry (2020); and a medal in 2019 from SouthWest Writers for a WWII story. Recent/upcoming writing and photo work in HAUNTED WATERS PRESS,  Aletheia Literary Quarterly, CERASUS, Mediterranean Poetry, Slouching Beast Journal, Feral, and Mercurius. Alan performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES and with musicians from composingtogether.org. 
​

Metaba Uti 
(Hot Country) 
By Robert Clark 
 
Numa afa ma chuco lico intela 
(The afternoon sky is black and gray.) 
 
Pufi leta aqe epata ma pia 
(A fox smells the humid air) 
 
ta chua bueta niocotela  
(and runs to his hole.) 
 
Numama elama cametela 
(The sky swallows the sun.) 
 
Ibine uti chucuma ibisotela 
(Water anoints the Earth.) 
 
Metaba uti atafi oso caqua intela 
(Sweet old hot country is here.) 
 
Ahanaye leta
huquino afa ma bueta samotela 
(An oak bathes in the afternoon rain.) 
 
Chulufi leta yapicolo leta chicolota piquitela 
(A bird hides underneath a palm frond.) 
 
Nubala leta milicoma ocototela 
(A lake hears the lightning.) 
 
Napolama cache leta ofueno nihitela 
(The thunderstorm dies after an hour.) 
 
Elama pilutela 
(The sun returns.)  
 
Salobacare saloba uque arecoeqetabotela 
(Bees diligently make honey.) 
  
Itori leta Utina cuyucare bueta ituquamantela 
(An alligator thanks God for fish.) 
 
Metaba uti atafi oso caqua intela 
(Sweet old hot country is here.) 

Bio: Robert Clark is from Paterson, New Jersey. He has a B.A. in English from Rollins College. His first lesson in the Timucua language was at six years old from his great grandmother. He learned three words in that lesson: iti (father) and iquini (mother), and iso (mother). This language is a part of him. He encourages anyone who would like to learn more about one of Florida's beautiful original languages to go to:
 https://hebuano.wordpress.com
 

Full Moon Over Duck Key 
By Joe Dahut 
 
Tarpon roll under the moon, so as to say 
they are happy, hungry, unbothered 
by my watching from the old fishing pier. 
 
One breaks its back over the bank 
into sharp moonlight. A silver eclipse 
against the black, hot tide; pregnant with life. 
 
Tonight, there is little that bores me. 
The sargassum stench in low tide’s exposure, 
a candle flame’s fight against the wet air, 
 
a starlit sky untouched by the clouds. 
I should admit that even under this beauty - 
this quiet breeze, this clear sky, this bouquet of life, 
 
I write from a place of deep sadness. 
You are far from any tarpon, any ocean, 
any piece of me still in your air.  
 
I do not miss the nights 
we shared a full moon. 
I just think of you, is all. 
 
Bio: Joe Dahut is a poet and essayist living and writing in the Florida Keys. He earned his MFA in Poetry from New York University, where he taught creative writing. Joe's work can be read in The Drake, The FlyFish Journal, Clade Song, and Little Patuxent Review, among others.  




Paynes Prairie 
By Alex Gurtis 
 
Do you remember back in college, when we saw  
a herd of bison just south of Gainesville?  
Bison!  
In Florida!  
After being hunted into extinction, 
they were reintroduced 
to Paynes Prairie in 1975. 
  
That day tall grass bent in the wind  
before a horizon of paintbrushes  
dripping with water along dirt trails. 
12-foot gators paid us no heed  
as we tip toed by their midday naps. 
In the distance, a herd of wild stallions 
paraded through the marsh, brushing aside  
gator, snake, and all manner of creature 
that thought themselves atop the food chain.  
 
That ground, once dressed in coral  
and known as an ocean bed  
then a grassland that gave birth to a lake.  
Once a lake, then hollowed by a sinkhole, 
today half grassland, half marsh.  
Students search nearby streams for fossils,  
calcium memories with the knowledge  
of how to swim.  
 
That afternoon, we watched the bison gird themselves 
for the journey across alligator alley.  
The calves moaned in anticipation.  
Unwilling to nap when food was near,  
the gators woke, lumbering into the water.  
No meals that day. Alpha bison guarded the herd, trapping  
 
us by the crumbling watchtower.  
They flooded the trail, building up  
into a rising wave of fur and momentum.  
When the ocean inevitably comes again,  
who will guard us from the horns? 


​Bio: Maryland born but Florida bred, Alex is a poet and journalist based in Orlando. His work has appeared in W&S Quarterly, EcoTheo Review, Rejection Letters, and others. Alex is a MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida and currently serves as the reviews editor for HASH. ​

Mourning Until Morning 
By Lauren Johnson 
 
Scattered early-risers 
wait. 
Off-shore, waves curl 
in liquid wood shavings. 
  
A dead jellyfish 
slumbers on the liminal sand 
between the groaning ocean 
and dry land. 
  
I carve through the heavy water. 
It rises around my legs -- 
a Shakespearean collar -- 
then collapses. 
  
Mixed with cream-colored shells 
lie the carcasses of crabs 
killed in stormy swells, 
no funeral. 
  
My little brother runs, 
sending offended seagulls 
soaring over the shifting sea, 
gray avian silhouettes. 
  
The earth repents 
turns to face the sun 
darkness fades 
light invades. 
  
Off-shore, clouds bow 
under the gravity of glory 
as scattered early-risers 
behold. 
 
Bio: 
Lauren Johnson resides in Orlando, Florida with her family and her energetic dog Coco. Her poetry has appeared in Living Waters Review and The Fourth River, and is forthcoming in The Tiny Journal.  When she is not writing, she enjoys reading retold myths, taking scenic walks, conversing with friends, contemplating the meaning of the universe, and baking bread.  Her favorite Florida beaches are Cocoa Beach, where she learned to surf, and Daytona Beach, where she wrote this poem one storm-tossed morning. ​


Picture
Miami 
By Ayesha Raees 



















​



Bio: 
Ayesha Raees عائشہ رئیس identifies herself as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms. Her work strongly revolves around issues of race and identity, G/god and displacement, and mental illness while possessing a strong agency for accessibility, community, and change. Raees currently serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at AAWW's The Margins and has received fellowships from Asian American Writers' Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, and Kundiman. Her debut chapbook “Coining A Wishing Tower” won the Broken River Prize, judged by Kaveh Akbar, and is published by Platypus Press. From Lahore, Pakistan, Raees currently shifts around Lahore, New York City, and Miami.  ​


Golden Sunshine 
By Madeline Riley  
 
Glistening, tan, black, white shells, 
blistered soles tiptoe along their backs. 
Salty, crisp mist gently caressing 
naked shoulders and masks ablaze. 
Incandescent, white light engulfing 
your entirety, inundating every inch. 
 
Pine needles whistle past wobbling fawns, 
as they dart from the canopies above. 
Iridescent springs, colder than ice, 
tranquilly usher paunchy gray bodies 
back to the boundless Gulf. 
Whetted stinging spires, the razors-edge from the zig,  
not the zag of palmetto daggers. 
 
Bright, acidic juice dripping from cracked lips. 
Leathered hides of ghosts from summers past. 
21.5 million diverging thoughts and ideas, 
swirling around this state dripping in golden sunshine. 
​


Bio: Madeline was born and raised in Arkansas, nicknamed the ‘Natural State.’ Through her outdoor-centric upbringing, she fostered a deep passion for all aspects of nature, ranging from the Ozark Mountains to the Buffalo River and the thousands of species that speckle the lands between. She moved to Florida to pursue higher education, earning her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Policy, while also studying coastal geology and political science. Currently, at USF researching for her master's degree in Food Security and Sustainability and Climate Change Mitigation, Madeline hopes to gain knowledge to safeguard natural spaces for generations to come. ​

Incarnation 
By John Eric Vona 
 
I’m looking for questions among trees  
that stand like exclamation marks, 
among these public park cypress 
that fantasize about being a forest. 
 
I wander from hammock to wetland,  
boardwalk to canopy – past cell phone conversations 
pretending to be nature hikes, past the joggers 
and the black racers that scare the joggers – 
until I find an unmarked trail 
and wander to a clearing. 
 
Finally, I cannot hear people. 
Finally, I can hear the trees sway. 
And for no reason at all, I recall that my wife  
would like to be reincarnated as a grizzly bear – 
her love of sleep and sushi transforming her 
into a creature that hibernates and eats raw salmon. 
The other night over nigiri she asked me, 
What animal would you come back as? 
sensing some inequality in our 
encyclopedias of each other. 
I responded, a male grizzly bear. 
 
Maybe as a bird, I could at last appreciate 
the silent sway of the trees, 
but I’m afraid of heights. 
My desire for solitude, makes me think: 
Lone Wolf, but I think I lack certain predatory instincts, 
and somehow, this seems more emo an answer than cat. 
I’ve always admired dogs’ 
ability to not give a shit, 
but I’m not one for leashes. 
I like mushrooms, but truffle pig 
seems a dumb answer. 
I briefly consider aquatic creatures. 
Perhaps a squirrel. 
 
I can stroll through the whole child’s 
alphabet of zoo animals  
and find only my own phobias, 
my hesitations, my doubts. 
 
So, you be a bear, standing like an answer in the river, 
and I’ll be the question, swaying like an unbothered tree. 


Bio: John Eric Vona teaches writing at Steinbrenner High School where he is the faculty advisor to The Echo Art & Lit Mag. His fiction can be found around the web, and he contributes to Slate Magazine's Ask a Teacher advice column. Between writing daily and raising five kids, he enjoys gardening and guerrilla-planting trees with his absolutely perfect wife, Emily, whom the poem is about and for. ​

Submissions are now closed for 2022.

Saw Palm: Florida Literature & Art in collaboration with the USF Botanical Gardens are seeking poetry submissions for our Spring 2022 Poetry Contest on Floridian flora and fauna. Send us your original poetry navigating the great expanse of Florida nature, from our sandy terrain to our natural springs, our humid swamps to our vast skies of sunshine. 

​Winners will be published on sawpalm.org and receive a free one-year membership to the USF Botanical Gardens, along with publication in their Shade Gardens. 

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.