Judged by author, Wes Browne
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? —Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” ——— I awake shortly before dawn, rising silently...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | by Nyoka Pierce - 2nd Place, Spring 2025
Remember butterscotch days and flipflops on tacky pavement? When pitch-high laughter and the cadence of your mother scattered our fingers? That time. When mismatched pattern and jigsaw blocks spoke faintly of our...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Nyoka Pierce - 3rd Place, Spring 2025
No one prepared me for the horrors of becoming eleven. There were no public service announcements about the mysteries of fitting in or standing out. Television, for all its offerings, neglected to teach me not to play too hard...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Faith Brooks - Finalist, Spring 2025 | 0
Note: Os-da shu-na-le-i means good morning in Cherokee. Thunder: the wild beasts trampling clouds. Clouds are carriages carrying cargo: Scent of rain, crunch of leaves under black paws, Tap of nature’s tears on bear backs,...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Faith Brooks - Finalist 3, Spring 2025 | 0
This house holds both light and dark. I always thought that a building must be shadowed by the people who came before, but we brought our own ghosts inside the brick walls and sealed them inside, creating more over time to keep...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | by Faith Brooks | 0
Bait the line with a chubby worm Until its inside pop around the hook, Sliding through membrane until secure. Flip the reel and hold the line, Cast into the shadows and the rocks, And wait patiently for the bobber to Be drug...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Dan Acocella - Finalist, Spring 2025 | 0
Deep down beneath your feet is a river Some of it’s yours – some of it’s not It runs fast and slow and slow and fast , It flows in lakes and pools and ponds and streams. But it all ends up together in the great big sea....
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Faith Brooks - Finalist - 1, Spring 2025 | 0
We call her Jezzy for short. When you have a little baby and run across such a beautiful name, you don’t think a thing of it. But when the wife starts the family on going to church on those bright Sunday mornings, the preacher...
by alrobertson4@catamount.wcu.edu | Apr 28, 2025 | By Brian Longacre - Finalist, Spring 2025 | 0
I sat outside to eat my sandwich because inside was full of people and people things. While I was eating, listening to each delicious bite, I saw a young girl, maybe 13, across the street between two buildings where leftover...
