Customer Reviews

End of Season: Award-Winning Poems

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The 35 poems in this sleek, attractive, little anthology were all award-winners in the inaugural Tom Howard Poetry Contest. This book was first published in a limited edition in 2003. In response to demand, it was reprinted twice in 2004. As the above contest moves into its seventh year, and sales of its more recent anthologies such as TRAVELING: An Anthology of Award-Winning Poetry and SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME: Fifty Award-Winning Poems show no signs of abating (in fact, they have increased dramatically in 2008), it seemed appropriate to re-issue the first anthology, not only to satisfy demand and make the collection complete, but to demonstrate the extremely high standard achieved by competitors from the very first. Six poems written by the Chief Judge are also included, plus a comic fantasy composed by both the current judges. Forty-two poems in all!

The Tom Howard Contest is one of the few prestigious poetry contests that will accept poems in all styles and genres, including comic verse. Adam Wallace's delightfully humorous "Jeremy Johnson Jackson the Third" won an appropriate Third Prize and his "Bike Riding" was Most Highly Commended. Also in favor are descriptive poems. Ann Tregenza's "Train Journey" delighted the judges who awarded her Second Prize: "A brown grasshopper jumps into space,/ a flickering flash on an unused track,/ with rustle of wings climbing the air." First Prize was deservedly won by Jennie Herrera for her superb narrative, "Fritillary", a poem as unusual as the title: "Sweet bright grasses fringed about a secret cove,/ With little rasping voices, softer than the waves that curl,/ Softer than the winds that trill a harmony across the dunes,/ Telling tales ..." You can read these wonderful poems in full, plus 39 others in all styles and genres, in "End of Season".