A Peek Inside the New Issue
Selections from the forthcoming 2025 Poetry Contest issue, featuring poems by Philip Stern, Buffy Shutt, Susan Miller, and Byron Hoot.
TRANSCRIPT
Passager’s 2025 Poetry Contest issue just came out. In fact, the issue’s SO new that you may not even have gotten your copy yet. On this episode, four poems from the new issue.
Philip Stern said that he’s very much aware of all the good poets out there and that so many of them are younger. He said, “Maybe I wrote this poem to tell myself as well as my fellow late bloomers that we offer valuable perspectives.” He said that he began writing poetry seriously only after he retired. Here’s Philip’s poem “Emerging Poet,” which he dedicates “to late bloomers like me.”
Have you felt, like me,
like a groundhog half out of burrow,
eyeing the glare,
fearful of cold air
and sparse greenery?
Or have you felt, like me,
like a shaggy caterpillar,
once inching on tree branch,
now anxious in chrysalis,
eager to open silk-veined wings?
Well, fellow groundhog, I say –
emerge!
gift us with your grey-tipped bristle,
your philosopher’s excavating claws,
your ripe knowledge of darkness –
and fellow chrysalis –
surprise us with your unpredictable flight path,
your wings trembling over embodied fragrances –
share their bold eloquence
in orange and black and gold!
“Emerging Poet,” Philip Stern.
Buffy Shutt said that this next poem “investigates the weight that silence and words play in a relationship; the inadequacy and the strength of both.” She said, “My inspiration comes from our boxwood shrubs: With proper care boxwood can live up to 80 years.” Here’s Buffy’s poem “Every Fourteen Days a Language Dies.”
Most nights we sit on the porch.
Before he goes in –
goes in to stretch out, to read, to be alone –
he cups his hands around mine as though
my hands are not strong enough or
big enough to hold anything,
as though my hands are nothing on their own.
Most nights we sit on the porch.
Before he goes in –
I talk a little.
My words slip off him, fall between us, boxwood berries.
I want to be translated into his language
so he feels the words inside him
so there is no space between me and him
so he knows I am saying: I hate you
so he knows I am saying: I love you.
Buffy Shutt’s poem “Every Fourteen Days a Language Dies.”
Susan Miller said she was inspired by what we keep and what we lose as we age. She said she discovered her mother’s first driver’s license—dated 1936—stuffed in the corner of a desk drawer she was cleaning out. Here’s Susan’s poem “You Never Know Who or What Will Travel With You to the End.”
Mom lost
Dad
her car and
her memory.
She left behind
her first driver’s license
a ratty red wallet
a china lamp
and me.
Just last week
I lost
my favorite tee
(the one with butterflies)
a pair of sunglasses and
a dear friend
With me still are
my sweet husband
kids
grandkids and
a tiny wooden monkey
who stares from a shelf
his primordial eyes
basking in the light
of a once-ugly china lamp
that has turned out to be
quite beautiful.
“You Never Know Who or What Will Travel With You to the End,” Susan Miller.
And finally, Byron Hoot’s poem “Mapmaking.”
If a true question holds a true answer,
then a true despair holds a true hope.
What hope has ever been born of hope?
What strength has never known weakness?
What love has never known its loss?
These are the thoughts of an old man
considering the dog-legged map of his
life, the landmarks of place and heart,
decisions the soul made not spoken of,
consequences that aged like wine,
some that turned sour. I have known
nothing without the interplay,
the intertwining of opposites
whispering, shouting, “Here now.
Always now.” The complexities of “Yes.”
The complexities of “No.” The beauty
found unexpectedly, love unforced that
flowed. I keep revising the map, changing
the place that says, “I am here.”
Byron Hoot’s poem “Mapmaking.” Byron said, “I’m retired. Live alone in the wilds of Pennsylvania. I was contemplating one day how I ended up where I am and this poem appeared. There were certain key moments in my life that, in retrospect, said, “This way.” So, here I am where I never planned to be as though some logic or synchronicity brought me here.”
We’ve been listening to pieces from the brand-new, hot-off-the-presses 2025 Passager Poetry Contest Issue. Sometime soon, we’ll feature the work of 2025 Passager Poet Angie Minkin, whose work is featured in this issue.
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For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
