Below are the four selected nominees for the second round of the 2018 Lafayette Poetry Contest. Each poem is paired with another. Vote for your favorite out of each pair, and the winner of that voting will move on to the final round!

In light of spam, voting has changed to end April 6th and the two disqualified poems are now undisqualified. Everyone is encouraged to vote, although everyone is limited to one vote each and unsportsmanlike methods of gaining  votes will not be tolerated and will cause poems not to be eligible to move on. Suspicious amounts of voting will be scrutinized.

Poem #1

By Riley Madsen

Song of the Forest

A special place in forests hold
An aura many men have told
Where dancers dance their hearts around,
Where no disguise would bring us down.

In there our shoes would not belong;
Reborn we’d stomp to our own song:
A throbbing rhythm with its roots
In all the planet’s fertile fruits.

No fear of iron spears a-thrown
By those mature who’ve overgrown
Like vines around the necks of trees,
Like poison borne upon the breeze.

At night we’d lay beneath the sky,
Not knowing stars reside so high;
We’d reach our hands above to take
Those shining spots within the lake.

A special place concealed by shade,
Unseen on walks down paths man-made;
A baby born today must fight
To keep their wonder burning bright.

Poem #2

By Philip Dority

Letter to an Addict

What could I do?
I never knew
how’d you go from good at school
to no shoes

you were troubled
I know
you struggled
so slow

yet it happened so fast
gradual but soon the turning point past
we reacted aghast
something so extreme that it surpassed

what we could’ve expected,
never suspected that u injected
didn’t detect it
and now we’re infected

addicts don’t have relationships
they take hostages
but maybe this is our fault
did we break our promises?

to love and care through all the wear
upon these values did we share
never once did we think to break this swear
yet here we are
and you
there

this disease affects you monumentally
physically and mentally
it changed our lives heavily
but I want you to listen carefully

you are not a regret
you are not a mistake
we have always loved you
and still do this day

our love is not fake
you are wanted
we want you with us
and not departed

I’m sorry if I’ve failed you
what’s done is done
maybe I could’ve done more
or maybe I’ve overdone

but now there’s only one goal
and that’s for you to win
I’ve been cheering for you
and I will beginning to end
please come back to the living
the land of your friends
your family misses you
we want you healthy again
-Letter to an Addict

Spam votes will not be counted towards the final number of votes. Users are allowed to vote only once.

Which poem do you prefer?

• Poem #2 (92%, 67 Votes)
• Poem #1 (8%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 73

 Loading ...

Poem #3

By Olivia Kramer

I Am

I am the lady.
I sit, I write, and I never stop.
Drops of sunlight and creativity seep through the cracks of my window and rain on the desk, my desk, and I never know why.
I never ask why. I never ask anything, or say anything, because the words I say don’t come from my mouth; they come from my brain, and they empty onto the page.
I don’t speak, I write.

I am the lady at the desk.
My pen is no longer a tool, but an extension of my arm.
It is ever flowing, never empty, always in motion.
My arms never shake, I am never tired.
My door is kept shut and no sound escapes these lips.
There only sound from the room is the sound of my pen dragging along sheets and sheets of paper.

I am the lady at the desk who writes.
Page after page is set aside as I write, write, write and I could never imagine what my life would be like except as the lady at the desk who writes.
And as the sun sets and my arms stretch, I do not grow weary.
The stars emerge from their hiding place and the breeze slows, but my pen never stops.

I am of the silent kind.
While in daylight the kids outside my window play pretend,
Fantasies and ‘what ifs’ roaming in their minds,
I sit inside, allergic to the outside and its sounds.
I used to wonder if all children were like those outside my window: loud, obnoxious, and outside.
But I, I like it in here, where it is quiet.
I like it in here, where silence is my companion.
In here I can read and write for as long as the shortness of quiet eternity allows, as if the longevity of the stillness of the air is my only source of energy.

I am the writer.
I have never been anything other than a writer, and I could never be anything other than a writer.
I do not come from the outside, and I will never go outside.
I am inside, and my quiet soul will remain here.
I am the writer.
I think, I write, I revolutionize.
And as I write, I glance back at all the pages I have made mine, all these words that were stored in a container from my brain, are mine, they belong to me.
And this, no one can take from me.
These words are mine, and I am the one has written them.

Now here we are at the end of the stem.
Though the stem does not continue, my roots run deep, and I will never quit being what I am.
I run deep into the ground,
My roots travel to the inner part of the earth,
And these roots of mine will never be pulled from the ground.
I am the lady at the desk who writes.
I am of the silent kind.
I am the writer.
I am.

Poem #4

By Susie Slusher

i fell in love with a poet once

the last time you saw the moon
you used the curve of the cresent
to represent the slim of my waist
as if the rocks declaration of nighttime
was enough to make your
insides roar.

the gleam of the universe
made nothing less than an
animal out of you , yet
i still let you claw out my insides
because im sick
of being a metaphor to you.

i want to be your morning coffee,
to be some type of drug
keeping you stable throughout
the day, not an urge
trapped beneath your teeth
that keeps you strained
throughout the night

Spam votes will not be counted towards the final number of votes. Users are allowed to vote only once.

Which poem do you prefer?

• Poem #4 (74%, 14 Votes)
• Poem #3 (26%, 5 Votes)

Total Voters: 19

 Loading ...