Spirit First announces 2010 Poetry Contest Winners
Spirit First is pleased to announce the winners of the first annual Spirit First Meditation Poetry Contest. An amazing total of 741 entries arrived from 42 states in the United States and 23 nations worldwide.
Drew Myron from Yachats on the Oregon Coast wins first place for her poem "Unless you." Drew is a former newspaper reporter and editor who has for 12 years been the head of DCM, a marketing communications company. Drew is a beautiful, unassuming spirit not given to promoting herself. As she states on her own website, "I like a soft piano, in a dim room. I'm not crazy about parades." Today, though, we at Spirit First celebrate her profound writing and the gifts brought to us in her words in "Unless you."
Wendy Winn from Luxembourg, Europe, earns second place for her poem "A free for all." Wendy is a freelance writer, translator, and artist living in Luxembourg in the heart of Europe. She has three school-age children, six rabbits, a very old cat, a master's degree in English, and a bachelor's in metaphysics. Wendy practices what she preaches and finds time almost every day to be still and go inward. One of her favorite sayings is that when you're too busy to meditate, that's when you really should be meditating.
Two authors take third-place honors. Judith Prest from Duanesburg, New York, takes a third-place prize for her poem "Stillness Is Like Water," and Carly Sachs from Brooklyn, New York, takes a third-place prize for her poem "Coat Sleeve Pratapana."
Judith was a school social worker for 26 years and now is an expressive arts practitioner; she writes poetry, makes art, and leads creativity and healing workshops. She has published a collection of poetry and essays, Sailing On Spirit Wind. Judith's poetry also appears in three anthologies and is published in several literary journals.
Carly Sachs is a writer, educator, and Kripalu-Certified yoga instructor who specializes in using the practice to help those who are dealing with trauma. Drawing on her Jewish roots, Carly strives to adhere to the principle of Tikkun Olam, Hebrew for "repairing the world." She is the author of the steam sequence (Washington Writers' Publishing House, 2006) and the editor of the why and later (Deep Cleveland Press, 2007).
You can read more about our winning authors in our Spring 2010 Newsletter coming out in April. And now, here are our winning poems:
~ by Drew Myron
Unless you
visit the dark places, you'll never
feel the sea pull you in and under,
swallowing words before they form.
Until you visit places within you
cloistered and constant, you will travel
in a tourist daze, wrought with too much
of what endures, depletes.
If you never turn from light, close
your eyes, feel the life inside, you'll leave
the church, the beach, your self,
knowing nothing more.
Unless you are mute, you will not
know your urgent heart, how it beats
between the thin skin of yes and no.
~ by Wendy Winn
A free for all
There was a performance artist, Bill Harding,
Who used to carry about a briefcase filled with sod.
He'd surprise everyone by opening it,
Setting it down, removing his shoes, and stepping into his
Own private park.
Meditation's like that.
My parents used to fly private airplanes.
It always amazed me that down here it could be
Grey and miserable and full of car horns and traffic lights
And up there, up past the clouds,
Petty problems disappeared and everything was always peaceful.
Meditation's like that.
You've maybe heard about creating a special place
To hold in your mind, at the dentist's, in traffic, under stress.
I used to always use the linens department at Sears or Penney's.
Among soft folded towels in coral and turquoise,
among display beds piled high with throw pillows and matching comforters,
Who could be worried?
Meditation's like that.
Your own private park you can slip off to whenever you need
A quiet moment to reconnect to the Earth and all that turns with it
and all it turns in.
Your own blue sky above the rain clouds you can fly off to whenever you need
To rise above the trivial rain showers of the day to day,
to become the sky itself.
Your own perfect image of calm and order,
not necessitating terrycloth or combed cotton or 100% down
a realization that everything is in its perfect place and time,
including you.
It's all yours. It's all mine.
Any time.
Meditation's like that.
~ by Judith Prest
Stillness Is Like Water
Stillness is like water
moving deep inside the earth
seeping slowly between rocks
trickling down
in the dark
a tide moving inward
Stillness is the space
between breaths
inside heartbeats
the silence of the gathering wave
that never breaks
Stillness blankets me
cushions me against my own
sharp edges
wraps me in her protective shawl
keeps my tender heart
from ripping
on the thorns
of the world
~ by Carly Sachs
Coat Sleeve Pratapana
for Devarshi
Imagine a thousand snow globes of every place you've ever been,
all that you've tasted, all that has moved you,
all that you have loved.
Good pilgrim, shake all that glitter inside you
re-awakening your own inner magic
a thousand worlds shining through you
and as you return to stillness
notice who you truly are in this moment.
© 2009 - 2010 Spirit First
Design by: Summit Web Design
Privacy Policy Terms of Use