Passager Poet Gilbert Arzola
and 71 Honorable Mentions
“I am 67 this year. While I have been writing since the eighth grade, when an English teacher said that I “had a way with words,” I never took it very seriously until I retired and was done with work and kids were raised. I dabbled. I was raised in North Judson, Indiana, one generation removed from the back of a migrant truck, where we were one of three Mexican-American families in an otherwise very white community. The poem “Introductions” was born of that. The other poems are about my father who passed away a couple of years ago, my mother, and memories that look a little different now that I am older. I am always writing now. A high school softball coach, I have published a book about fast pitch pitching. I am humbled and honored to win this award.”
Gilbert Arzola
Poetry | Soft cover | 182 Pages | $15
Honorable Mentions
Irene Apostoleris
“Taming Sorrows”
Fay Ashby
“Gramma, Rules”
Adrienne Asher
“My Life as a Damascene Sword”
Dianne Woods Ashley
“The Women’s House”
Merry Benezra
“(New) Here”
Judith Bernal
“A Bear”
Christopher Buckley
“Selfie”
Kathleen S. Burgess
“Giving Thanks in Panajachel, Guatemala”
Phyllis Carito
“Tumbling”
Ted Charnley
“Cacophony in Concert”
Jeanne Cook
“Driving North”
Mark DeFoe
“Re-Roofing My Shed”
Jerome Gagnon
“Ordinary Transformations”
Gene James Gilbert
“Rosa Parks Is Tired”
John Glowney
“Driving Home from the Funeral of a Friend”
Judith Goedeke
“5 a.m. in a Violent Country”
Ruth Goring
“Textiles”
Charles Grosel
“The Dog at the Door”
Ruth Hoberman
“Art Class for Adults”
Guy Hollyday
“Do Hogs Fly Backwards?”
Betty Ann Howard
“Politics at the Bridge Table”
Joanne Jagoda
“Sniffing at My Door”
Christine Jones
“You Chose Pain”
Judy Kaber
“Congestive Heart Failure in Women”
Jen Karetnick
“Flight Plan”
Ruth Moon Kempher
“Palimpsest #92: Picasso Museum, Paris”
Leatha Kendrick
“Lady Proteus”
Lynne Knight
“In a Room That No Longer Exists”
Iris Lee
“Aubade”
Michael H. Levin
“Friendship Park (Tijuana border, August 2016)”
Robert Lowes
“Good Timing”
Peter Lucas
“Ventriloquist”
Margaret Lunden-Molinari
“Going Off the Bridge”
Kathleen Lynch
“Valley Dreams”
Katharyn Howd Machan
“Swimming the Ashes”
Chuck Madansky
“The Difference Between One Day and the Next Is Whether the Spoons Talk Back”
Sheryl Massaro
“What We Are”
John P. McGill
“Mr. Kubuul”
Sarah Merrow
“Time Travel”
Michael Miller
“The Old Couple”
Beth Morris
“Brooklyn Bound”
Anne Mugler
“Additional Possibilities for the Ark”
Sheila A. Murphy
“Even now she wonders . . .”
Bonnie Naradzay
“Despair”
Edward Nudelman
“A Farmer and His Wife”
Miriam O’Neal
“Leaving It All Behind”
Scudder Parker
“My Mother’s Art”
Kimberly Peterson
“Scratched & Dented”
Alan Reese
“A Hymn to Time”
Rebekah Remington
“Civilization and Its Discontents”
John Ridland
“To the Youthfully Aging”
Alida Rol
“They Will Know Us”
Sophia Rivkin
“Nail Soup and Cardamom, Life Choices”
Marian Kaplun Shapiro
“Hearing/Not Hearing in the Conference Hall”
Annette Sisson
“The Island Is Its Own Gospel”
Judith Slater
“The Counselor”
Jim Smith
“Return to the Scene”
Constance Snyder
“By the garden of Stanley Kunitz at the tip of Cape Cod”
Julie Cadwallader Staub
“March 2015”
Ann Struthers
“Still, Aleppo”
Bonnie Thurston
“Artificial Deafness”
Memye Curtis Tucker
“Knots: A Family Story”
Lee Varon
“Ward of the World”
Viviane Vives
“Facebook Message from a Stranger”
Gerald Wagoner
“Koa (8/19/16 – 2/10/19)”
Doris Watts
“Neighborhood Watch”
Kathi Wolfe
“Ruins”
Rachelle Woods
“Old Rose Smells Best”
John Wright
“The Burning Bush”
James Zimmerman
“Juana Reunites with Her Family”
Patricia Zylius
“Poison and Purity”