Calendar of Events

Contests

Workshops

Out Loud Poetry

Out Loud Anthology, Volume III

Pen in Hand
Mini-Conference

Iron Pen Contest 2010

Children's Literature Festival

David R. Collins Writers' Conference

The Writers' Block
E-Newsletter

   

 

  Midwest Writing Center

 

    Fostering appreciation of the written word, supporting and educating its creators.
 

HomeWho We AreWhat We DoWriters' ResourcesBookstoreHow You Can HelpHow to JoinOur Donors/Sponsors
     
 

Out Loud Poems of the Month

Congratulations to Mike Bayles and John McBride for having their poems selected as the Out Loud Poems of the year!!

Out Loud Poem of the Month for May 2009

What Helen Heard (Dedicated to Jordan)
By Catie Osborn

It's true (she said)
How can she understand
words
like "I" and "me" and "you" and "we"
and ad infinitum.
Only--she didn't say ad infinitum.
No, words like ad infinitum aren't used
by bleach blonde brown rooted
fake-nailed captains of cheerleading teams
they're used by people like Helen Keller
who work and strive and seek and explore--
something I'd like
to aspire to
someday
to break free of this monofiliament cage
to sing
sweetly
to speak my secrets into the darkness
murmur my fears and caress
my longings all falling on
deaf ears and dumb tongues
so its like I never said anything
at all
except--
I did
you just missed it,
unlike the whole rest of the cosmos
who now echo back
my words
ad infinitum.

 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for July 2009

By Catie Osborn

Awhile ago somebody came and done scorched the earth
but instead of killing what they wished was dead
they went and killed our hope– instead
oh but don’t despair
see hope is real hard to irradicate
what i’m trying to say
is that it’s still there
you can feel it under the surface
on the nights when you hold real still and
squinch your eyes shut at the brightness of the stars
and you can hear it pressed against the concrete sidewalks
trying to find a weak spot
to sneak on through into the world
oh hope is there alright, just biding its time
its in everything we do if you know how to look
but what what they don’t say
is that a little bit of hope is stuck in you
you gotta dig real deep to find it but I promise you it’s there
planted in the furrows of our brow,
in the crooks and crannies of broken hearts
its in that bed of promise and ambition deep down in your soul
that hope takes root
where it’s fertilized with fears and reservations and a sprinkling of doubt
because that stuff is crap
water it with sweat and tears
it’ll be plowed, don’t worry about that
plowed down and over and around by those who don’t believe
you gotta get used to that
but hope is resilient
mostly you just sit back and watch it and every so often loosen up the weeds
and given time and the proper douse of daily dreams and visions
it’ll grow and unfurl and become one giant hope tree
which we can all eat the fruits of
pass it on down the line
have a hope eating contest with hope berry pie
and homemade hope cobbler and rhubarb hope which no one but your grandpa likes
and it will keep on growing until everything we do is made from hope
we’ll gas our cars and weave our clothes and clean my glasses with it
until there’s so much hope they’re giving it away at low low prices even after Christmas sales
and there will be hope ad campaigns cause hope’s the perfect gift
it comes in all colors and sizes and can be tailored to fit your needs
and goes really well with wine
and CNN will comment on the hope surplus for this month while they stockpile it in
great warehouses to give to the less fortunate
so go on.
have the audacity to believe in something
believe that you will change the world. somehow.
believe in the power of your thoughts against the silver domed heavens
shake the very roots from which you spring
dare disturb the universe
all will tremble before your grand thoughts and great ideas
which may be too large for just one small person
because your ideals are mighty
so like Johnny Idealistic Appleseed keep
on spreading those little seeds of hope
put them everywhere you go and dont forget to smile
keep on moving and shaking and keep on keeping on
and in 20 years or maybe 40 when I’m as old as the hills
I will still stand behind these convictions and ideals
because i’ve chosen wisely and I can get get behind
the message I convey
cause you can hear it
hope keeps echoing back clear as a bell loud as a whistle
shooting up one frail tendril that will break up the grey concrete and
turn this city green with hope.

 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for August 2009


You used to love me

    by Sheri Grutz


All this used to be a dance, all this used to be a field, where you brought
out the best in me, like a
patch of flowers, this winning streak, and now, all the people are closed
inside buildings inside my
mind, and they grow nothing but quiet over my developed body with a locked
heart, they wonder as I
wonder, America, how to tame this wilderness and still grow something
beautiful, in the vacant part of
my eyes, that is where you will find your wish.


 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for September 2009

Centennial

      by Dick Stahl
 

I'm driving through the five steel hills

of the Centennial Bridge from Davenport at two miles per hour

over the limit this morning.  The speed eyes click

their enforcement

at my sleepy foot holding

the accelerator, while my eyes track

a white snake wiggling

into pleasure on the steamboat channel.  Comfortable,

this fog drops its belly

and slows the Rock Island Rapids' current

to a crawl.

 

I'm driving past the dismantled tollbooth

and almost brake to toss

my change into its gaping mouth.  Beyond the bridge pillars,

the sun stipples the water troughs

with stars.  This pool's

a silver constellation with its own misty shores, a cosmic

eddy turning everything

around, a crossing

for the gulls who wing it to the churning waters off

the red roller gates

of Locks and Dam No. 15.

 

I'm driving blind into this river's sunspot.

 

I'm driving

       into the whiskers of catfish,

                  into the scouring lips of sturgeons, into

                             the tricks of mudpuppies,

 

into the eye of the snake.

 

No time to count to one hundred

or ten on this roadbed.

I rush to five

and slide into Rock Island

in one piece. 

 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for October 2009
 

Elegy for the Pope, Feb. '05 (Jan-Feb '05 & the pope's on a ventilator)

Michael Kelly

 

For the first time since parochial, grammar school,

I am even thinking about the Pope. If he dies

it conflicts with my travel plans to be a tourist in Rome.

The white-smoke seekers will fill

St. Peter's Square and I may never see the ceiling

of the Cistine Chapel of Michaelangelo.

And all the good coffee, wine & food will be taken

by entourages of the world's Cardinals.

The prices will skyrocket and soldiers will be

armed to the teeth with terror threats.

And I shall be in rags, penniless and deported

because I love Jews more than Jesus.

My paranoia is escalating but my survival skills

tingle with the sensations of healthy fear of a senile,

patriachial, homophobe of international status

who once instilled terror into the groveling Galileo

whose life hanged by a thread and house arrest

was the best plea he could bargain. The burning at

the stake stuff just doesn't seem that appealing,

especially, when you are right and Truth and

Beauty have raptured you. But ashes, sack cloth,

mercy begging are not my stock and trade.

How high can hippocracy ride when two out of three,

four out of five priets are gay and 10-20%, the remaining

disengaging their sexuality yet deny their authenticity

while inflicting suffering; allowing suffering to continue

to happen or even encouraging some to suffer.

Don't die Pope because there are a hundred,

a thousand just like you waiting to take your place.

Dry, old men with closets full of sexuality & fantasy

tell the other half of the world,

about which they know nothing, how to live.

The arrogance and hippocracy rain down on us

who seek shelter and sanctuary from the maddness.

Someone who doesn't even know the daily weather

because of all the security, isolation and privilege;

" Are you talkin to Me...are You talking to me?"

I just want you to prattle on acting like

what you have to say is something important.

I'll even humor you, act like i'm listening or

even care about what have to say or think.

Just don't die before Easter and I'm back

to my Holy Seat in San Leandro, California.

 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for November 2009

River Maker

        by Dick Stahl
 
                           
The Mississippi is a trickle
                            compared to the gushing water when
                            the glaciers melted 10,000 years ago.
 
                            a sign on The Great River Road
 
 
 
The Mississippi Valley wrote its name
in gorging water after the glaciers
melted, and roaring torrents sliced through
the steep grade southward
for 2,000 miles. 
 
O to stand on the shore of this whooshing rush
of creation, this first
liquid glacier
warmed a few earth degrees moving
like a stampede of charging primordial beasts
eager for the sea. 
 
Even dipping one hand
into this cold, sweeping wash sucked
you down headfirst
into the ferocious current,
the dark undertow.
down to the bedrock, scoured smooth
for a quick drowning. 
 
White caps slapped their own applause
over this vast rapture
of surging water, the great River Maker marking
a swift valley, steep graded,
gouging at will, shorelines pulling wider apart
like one day's long summer horizons. 
 
This is power.  This is Nature's spectacular,
and no one standing to feel the bones
rattle, the eyes bulge, the heart leap out
of itself, the feet slide, the imagination send out
 
millions of current ideas
that only one river could contain,
 
The Mississippi. 


Out Loud Poem of the Month for December 2009

 

    The Seagull
 

             By William E. Buchholz

 

         The sea, and the sand, and the wind had a talk

                 (Very loudly, to hear o’re a seagull’s shrill squawk.)

         And each was deciding that he was the best.

                 Each said that he, only, could equal the test

         That God gave for the sand, and for the wind, and for the sea…

                 “I’m the best!” each one shouted. “Pray, listen to me.”

         

         First the sea gave a rumble- a fearsome old groan

                 A strong, and a loud, and a weird sort of moan.

         “I water the earth,” to all giving his challenge,

                 “I’m strongest,” he cried. “I weigh men in the balance.”

         They seldom can weather my gigantic waves…

                “Only the bravest their lives can save.”

 

         But then a dull brilliance came over the sand.

                 “I’m the color of Sun, not the color of man.”

         My beauty’s not boisterous…failing…untrue,

                 I stay just the same while listening to you.

         I stay on the beach and underlie all

                 You can surely see I’m the most beauteous of all.”

 

         Then, even if quiet, a tiny voice sounded.

                 “I’m airborne, my friends, I’m not stunted or grounded.”

         As the wind said these syllables, up came the sand-

                 In a whirling of fury, just as the wind planned.

         “It’s simple, who’s best! See those great waves a-slopping?

                 On the pretty brown sand the debris that they’re dropping?”

 

         “But wait just a minute!” These words brought a halt

                 To all of the argue mid waters of salt.

         “I’m airborne as well,” a voice squawked from the blue.

                 (For squawking’s what seagulls like foremost to do.)

         “I live in the water, and also in sand,

                 And fly on the wind, for I very well can.”

 

         So you see? Your uniqueness is just in your mind,

                 And your overripe ego has made you three blind.

         God made us all three for just certain reasons,

                 And we play our part in all the four seasons.

         “God bless you,” said Jesus, with love in his heart.

                 A small seagull that day gave all three a new start.

      

 

Out Loud Poem of the Month for January 2010

The Last Bully

 

By John McBride

 

Something darkly bright within us sparks,

The crawling child backing out

of the infant’s image,

his thin skinned terror of the night,

the ever-lengthening veined ticking

by which we grow our hearts,

our first raw bumbling on another’s mouth.

 

Eros in flight from the bloody holiday of birth-

domestic clocks will mark

her diapering red hands, her earnest kiss,

his rude stubble and great scissor lips,

Eros, who will take us by the arm and throat,

or be taken, who will teach us in love

to smother hate, has just awakened.

 

And whole houses, avenues, cities

begin to move, boys, girls,

chasing to exhaustion, and an empty

wind-blown street is all they claim,

so they must do it again and again,

such misery in your springtime rectitude,

this inland fever when you know the country whole,

and possessing it have gripped our inmost soul

for what we deny you, you deny greater still,

and all you need do is mention winter,

when glaciers slide half way across the bed,

and every night a beggar is outlined against the window,

to show that only you will have our head,

Eros, you may be the world’s last, greatest, bully.


 
 

 

 
bb
 
 


   Copyright 2001 Midwest Writing Center