And the Winner is…

Cathy Hailey, this year’s 30 for 30 judge has selected Susan Schied as this year’s winner.

Judge’s Statement

I enjoyed the diverse approaches poets took to meet Mike’s challenge, some providing more evidence of the collaging technique within the poem or the artist’s statement, others masking the collage technique through whittling language or extensive revision. Both approaches yielded beautiful poems. I was fascinated by how different some of the source materials were from one another and at how source material might be on a subject so much different from the resulting poem. Thank you for the opportunity to read your wonderful work. For me, selecting a winner was as difficult as following Mike’s poetry challenge. 

And the winner is…Susan Scheid for her poem, “Enter and Exit Singing.” I thought Susan did an outstanding job integrating three source materials that were very different from one another in the true spirit of collage poetry. At the same time, she connected to the pandemic with a beautiful stanza that I hope will ring true:

We will awaken and emerge one day.
Grope our way out,
the husk of this pandemic
a shadow on the floor.

Congratulations, Susan! Enjoy your subscription to Potomac Review.

Thank you for the opportunity, Mike! Thank you, poets, for your beautiful words!

Cathy Hailey

Congratulations Susan! And thank you everyone for your outstanding contributions this year. I hope you have enjoyed writing these poems as much as we have enjoyed reading them. Until next year…

Mike

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review