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2004 Robert Graves Award
Imago Poetry's 2004 ROBERT GRAVES AWARD
Congratulations to MICHAEL SPRING of Oregon, USA.
He has been chosen as the winner of the 2004 Robert Graves Award.
The 2004 Robert Graves Award Finalists:
Dee Rimbaud, UK
Nigel McLoughlin, IRE
Kristy Bowen, USA
Sarah Miller, UK (runner-up)
Michael Spring, USA (winner)
Merryn Williams, UK
The Robert Graves Award is in existence to promote the legacy and vision of classical scholar and writer Robert Graves (1895-1985) – author of over 140 books, including 55 books of poems and author of such books as I, Claudius (1934) and The White Goddess (1947). The Robert Graves Poetry Award is an annual award given to a poet writing in the English language and has poems previously published by Imago Poetry or other small press publications from the UK.
Below is a selection of Michael Spring's winning group of poems.
Work by all finalists can be found at the links below.
NOTE by Shannon Kerry, editor of Imago Poetry:
All six finalists are splendid poets. They are all winners! They were chosen from over 100 nominations for this award. A single winner was chosen, but the other five finalists should know that they are all on equal ground. Our mission is to introduce and give a little more attention and exposure to these particular poets. And like Robert Graves, the editors and judges at Imago Poetry believe they are all visionaries.
We feel that their poetry honors the voice and vision of Robert Graves. He is an important poet and scholar. Please take a moment, if you haven't already, and read some of his work again. We named the award after him for this reason: to give attention to a voice from the past; to promote his legacy through an annual award presented to a poet published or solicted by Imago Poetry editors, Shannon Kerry or guest editors.
This is the first annual Robert Graves Award by Imago Poetry. We will make a tradition of this! We were able to generate 70 pounds for the winner. We hope more will be available next year.
Imago Poetry is edited by Shannon Kerry and Asst. Editor David Smith
Our home base is Devonshire.
We will be taking submissions and soliciting poetry for our 2005 award in July, 2005. We welcome all submissions of original poetry written in the English language. Until then ...
Cheers!
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8 Poems by Michael Spring
mud song
I walked past the Oregon ash
and cattails
through the soggy fields
of tufted hairgrass
to slow my thoughts
on cobra lilies and sphagnum moss
I've decided
I'm going to dedicate my life
to this field
and to its swamps and bogs
I'm finally listening
to the prophet of worms
and the gospel of mycelium and rock –
and there the turtle's mantra –
and there the song that mud makes!
it rises like fog through my body
I'm on my hands and knees
watching as they disappear into the mud
I'm changing into a bear
or a stump or clump of berries –
no, I'm changing into a root
or tongue or tentacle
dancing the way roots dance
**********
Dendrocalamus asper
so this is what it’s like
to rise above the earth
rhizomes sending shoots
through the bony mud
of my body
culms tunneling
through my heart
and brain
mist from clouds
sweep over me
I like the metallic taste
of electricity on my tongue
my fingers are the leaves
one hundred feet
off the ground
I no longer want wings
**********
serpentine
I have climbed
into the highest branches
of the madrona
the serpentine
landscape below
shimmers green
in the sunlight
I imagine this old
ocean floor
burning and hissing
in its youth –
twisting and stabbing
for open sky –
like creatures that followed
it developed
scales and
sharp ridged spines
I look over the vast
forest –
fir and pine
billow in the gusting wind –
I hold on tight
as I am suddenly
washed
by leaves in the current
I close my eyes –
somewhere inside of me
the serpentine landscape
slides under the streets and rivers –
under the mountains
and oceans – making itself
a home – stretching out long
like sleep
**********
shepherding
the white cow
wades in grass
the sheep move like fog
as the fog pulls itself loose
from the heather and distant
limestone scars
my son is walking in the field
shepherding
the moist ground grips
and sucks at his boots
as if it wants to hold him here
I think of the war
that is calling out to him
and I want to become the ground
the voices of chickens and goats
seep up into the wind
along with the muffled sounds
of stone upon stone
as I continue
building
the dry-stone wall
**********
path to the lighthouse
between the cragged rocks and the molting ocean
a woman undresses and becomes
the beach
a crow above her
stumbles out of the wind
into a chorus of crows
and here you are
on the cliffside path to the lighthouse
amongst soggy pines
and dark ferns
wondering if this is the time
you too will finally lift out of your body
and become something else
so you walk on towards the lighthouse
it’s why you came here
and like you’ve done so many times before
you get lost in the walk
your eyes catching every glint
of a gull’s wing
or falling leaf
below you
in the soupy enclave of ocean
a sea otter
is done playing in the waves
it rolls onto its back
coasting with a flat stone on its chest
and an oyster in its paws
but before it begins drumming
before the shell cracks open
and the milk of salty meat
oozes and it devours the pearly flesh
it pauses
because it notices you
wading in a flow of fog
floating in a grove of scrub trees
your image clearly sunk
in the otter’s dark eyes
**********
Guitarra Portuguesa
in the cafe
Paredes held the Portuguese
guitar – walnut wood – the body
of Lisbon – with twelve strings
his fingers emulated rain
across the room a woman began
dancing –
the fingerpicking and figueto
described her movements –
the underwater sway
of sea grass –
I was submerged
her figure haunted every glass
of water or wine
her shadow drifted through the welter
of candlelight
on the adobe walls
after the final chord
floated across the room
and Peredes put his guitar down
I breathed in deeply
the steam of baked salmon
buttery spinach and garlic bread –
the music had entered everything
I placed a grape between my teeth
tasted the dark surge of juices
when I realized I could no longer see
the dancer
I wondered if she had disappeared
inside of me
**********
the cry
just when I sat down to write
the child’s cry began on the other side
of the swollen creek, inside one
of the apartment windows
it cut through all other sounds, tearing
through the rustle of leaves
and wrinkling the song of birds
I tried to ignore it, but then it landed
on my notebook – it was exhausted, sobbing, hungry --
the scree and pitch of the water’s voice
was tangled in its hair
so I gave in
and allowed it to feed on my writing
I allowed it to devour all the words it wanted
until it was stuffed
burping and gurgling and spitting up words
until it became a stanza all to itself
that is when I decided to rewrite it
do what was best for the cry
I gave it wings -- huge floppy butterfly wings--
then nudged it into the air
I watched it flap languidly –
a heavy sigh -- a sleepy breath -- floating
back towards the darkening windows
**********
music of the fairies
perhaps it was the song
of a seal or whale
somehow escaping
from the surging breakers
against the rocky beaches
whether it was the music
of fairies or not
it was of the earth
and swarmed
in the Blasket fiddler’s head –
the music swelled
like a thousand year growth
of orchids on bog moss
suddenly blossoming
and that is why he bundled
the notes
like thatch
and went to his fiddle like a trimmer
shaping the sounds
into the voices he heard
that day he sailed
around the Blasket Islands
and when he finally found his way
to County Kerry
his bow and fingers
barbed into the enchanted music
he walked the country roads
and when he played
the farmers sang with the cows
and the peat cutters
danced with their tools
and the cabbages
and potatoes and turnips bloated
and the grassy hills swayed
as if underwater
and in the fabled cromlech
of Morrigú
old stones stood up
and flew away as crows
and the bogs lit up like moons
(The poems above were previously published by Stirring, NEO, Literary Potpourri, Iota, The Pedestal, and Ravenna Press)
Michael Spring lives in O'Brien, OR. He is a martial arts instructor, poetry editor, visual artist, and a natural builder. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including: Atlanta Review, Midwest Quarterly, Poems Niederngasse, Pulsar, Verse Libre Quarterly, and others.
Michael's first book of poems, BLUE CROW, was published by Lit Pot Press, Inc., 2003. BLUE CROW has recently been translated into Portuguese by The University of the Azores.
Michael's second book, Mudsong, has been published by Pygmy Forest Press, 2005. To order copies, contact Michael Spring at: bluecrow_4@yahoo.com
www.litpotpress.com/Spring/Spring.html
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