Carmen Ziolkowski Poetry Prize Celebrates Winners
For the fourth annual Carmen Ziolkowski Poetry Prize, First prize, $500, donated by Carmen’s family, was awarded to Don Narkevic, a poet from Buckhannon, West Virginia.
Narkevic’s compelling poem on craftsmanship and ancestry in “Emerging Stone” resonated with the judges. Jim Ziolkowski remarked, “I think this would bring my mother back to Italy and the family farm. My mom would also think about the rough stones carved by men in Italy. I like this poem.”
Second prize, $250, was awarded to Sarnia poet Najah Shuqair for the careful detail and natural rhythm in “The Garden’s Quiet Song,” and third prize, $100, was awarded to Burlington poet Karen Kerekes for the emergent images and ideas in “When Irises Bloom.”
Honourable Mentions were awarded to Josie Di Sciasio-Andrews, of Oakville, for the captivating perspectives on time and place in “Flowers in Blue Vase,” and to Mary Anne Griffiths, of Ingersoll, for “Looking at the Bed in Candlelight” and its sharp depictions of inheritance and transition.
This year over seventy poems were submitted from across Canada and abroad, and the winners were selected by Carmen’s friends and fellow writers Ryan Gibbs, Rhonda Melanson, and Lois Nantais, as well as Carmen’s son Jim Ziolkowski.
Carmen Ziolkowski was a beloved Sarnia poet born near Naples, Italy. In her spirit, The Lawrence House Literary Arts Committee sought well-crafted poetry that was heartfelt, nature-based, and hopeful for this fourth annual Poetry Prize in her honour.
Carmen immigrated to Canada in 1955, and she studied journalism at Port Huron Junior College and taught creative writing at Lambton College. Her books of poetry include Roses Bloom at Dusk (Vesta Publications), World of Dreams (River City Press), and The Moon Before the Sun (Beret Days Press).
She and her husband Bruno had two sons, Robin and Jim, and three grandchildren, Alexandra, Nicholas, and Samantha. She loved her family, nature, travel, and literature. A vibrant member of the Sarnia-Lambton writing community, Carmen passed away on December 26, 2018, at the age of 94.
RETURN TO THE FIRST GARDEN
When my father was seventy-four and I was no longer a girl that cowered, skirting the edge of the room, I asked him to travel back to his childhood, the landscape he’d banished for years. He became an Amish boy in suspenders, hitching the horse to the buggy, driving Delaware’s back country roads past the
GHAZAL FOR EVE’S DAUGHTERS
Some women resist ruin for three thousand years. The wrecking ball smashes the front closet and hall but they just keep humming and dusting the knick-knacks. Lot’s wife disobeyed, turned and looked back at what was forbidden, now she’s afraid to risk any tears, four could dissolve a salt pillar. I watched a woman sell
FINDING THE FIELD WITH NO ROADS
I cast my bread on the waters, what I’d wanted and loved shuffled off on a raft, waved, promised to call then never looked back. Sometimes grief braids a rope, crafts a cage or a prison. I set the last brick, found a noose coiled round my neck. What could I do but build a
HER WINTER HEART
He conjured up a crow and sent it like a curse, cloaked in black, raven-lit, it settled on her shoulder. Who could have guessed a crow could save, it stole the poisoned bread. Now when ravens strut she counts their raucous throats as gifts that forced a turn, her winter heart borrows light, just like
Emerging Stone
Like Father’s unfinished life, the half-dressed donated stone stands in the farm’s front yard true as an oak. A traveling mason settles for pasta and peas at the family cemetery. The youngest daughter whispers Father’s name in his hairy ear like a sad girlhood secret, her tears pooling like stars in his chip-pitted cheek. Later,