Migrant*

By Carla Shafer
2010 Walk Award

*Copyright 2010 by Carla Shafer. This poem, which can also be read here, appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Ode to the Grandview Signal Light*

By Patricia Alesse
2008 Merit Award

Green is good
Green is glad
Green is great
Green is grand
Green is glorious!

Red isn’t bad.
It redoubles the rejoicing
Remembering the “always” stops
Reminding us how rare they are now.

We no longer dread the red,
But it’s a blast to go breezing by.
Green is great!

*Copyright 2008 by Patricia Alesse. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Retirement in Bellingham*

By Lorna Murphy
2006 Merit Award

The table before us is heaped
with a surfeit of riches,
so many offerings
that many of us, first released
from our former, regimented lives,
turn wild—without restraint
we heap our plates
sampling from each platter,
but then
we stagger from indigestion,
grow exhausted, stressed
from our excess.
Have we exchanged one work life
for another?

Gradually, wisdom overcomes our greed,
we slow down, make choices…
oh, such luxury to have choices!
Our days are full, sweet,
and the skull on the table
only heightens our pleasure in the feast.

*Copyright 2006 by Lorna Murphy. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

readings, workshops and more!

Whether you like to hear, study, support or write poetry, the Sue Boynton Poetry Contest has something wonderful in store for you this winter. Check out our list of upcoming Events…and join us!

For what was*

2007 Merit Award
By Paige Kulm, 8th Grade

I am a fierce lion of the flower fields,
My color shines brightly,
But then hidden among my many friends,
Thankful for their protection,

Spring now bursts out in every color,
As many of us just wait to be tickled,
By the busy bee.

Soon the bugs pop out,
Gnawing, at our precious,
Delicate, green hands.

Then comes our time to go,
The greedy people just plucking me and my,
Colored friends, almost as if they can’t hear us,
With our loud shrieks.

The sense of belonging fades away,
Just as our color will,
Within hours our days of glory together,
Will be no more.

Now as I pity in my near death,
I appreciate the difference,
Of my life.

Things around me seem the same,
As I wish for what was,
Me and my field of wild flowers.

*Copyright 2007 by Paige Kulm. This poem appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Warmth & gratitude

On a snowy Whatcom County Thanksgiving, special thanks to all of you who have created, sustained and participated in the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest — our generous donors, our hardworking committee members, our eager readers, our supportive media and, most especially, our thoughtful and creative poets.

on poetry…

“Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.” John Wain

On Heliotrope Trail*

By Devan Schwartz
2010 Walk Award

*Copyright 2010 by Devan Schwartz. This poem, which can also be read here, appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.

Western Connections

2010 Walk Award winner and Western Washington University Librarian, Paul Piper, will present Wikipedia: Pure Evil or Beatific Savior? on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at Noon at Village Books, in Fairhaven. This brown-bag lunch discussion is part of Western Connections. Bring your lunch and join in the conversation. Co-presented by Village Books and the Western Washington University Libraries.
More about the presentation here or here.
Paul Piper’s winning poem here.

You*

2006 Merit Award
By Chelsea Applegate, 5th grade

You are the one
the one is you
you are the one
that is always helping
me through times of
need not times of
greed. My passion
for you is like my passion
for snow so white and yet
so light. If the snow melts
my passion is gone the fire
is out the leaves are gone.
This is a community and
I belong in it.

*Copyright 2006 by Chelsea Applegate. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.