Spring 2024 Poetry Contest: Winners

Poetry Catalog is pleased to announce the winners, honorable mentions, and featured poems for our First Annual Spring Poetry Contest – 2024.

Guest judge and poet Hiram Larew had this to say:

Give poets the chance to celebrate the wonders of cheese, and just watch what happens.  Haikus, prose or list poems.  Homages, persona poems and more.  Many poets used their talents to celebrate the gifts of cheese while others tapped the theme to recollect, reflect, even grieve.   Poetry Catalog’s First Annual Spring Poetry Contest was successful for the remarkable variety of resulting poetry.  Very enjoyable.  Congratulations to the winners and to all who participated. 

So please help us give a round of applause to all of these poets for their outstanding work.

As words have the power to inspire and transform us – join us in celebrating this poetic talent and creativity.

A note from the judge follows each piece.

Winners

1st Place
Say Cheese!, By: Thomas Hemminger

Nicely constructed poem with a time-lapsed flow.  Clever use of the theme.

2nd Place
Thoughts On Cheese, By: Paul L. Arvidson

Cheese triggers first-world guilt.  This poem haunts.

3rd Place
The Cheesemaker’s Child, By: Melinda Tauler

Powerful for what’s not said.

Honorable Mentions:

• Rollicking Cheeses, By: Mila Hasan

This poem dances.   

• A Way To Go With Cheese, By: Sylvia Beverly

A grinning celebration of cheese.   

• Yarg, By: Will Griffith

Interesting piece that draws upon the legacy of cheese-making, its near-sacred rituals. 

• Mama’s Meatballs, By: Anne Marie Wells

A homage. Cheese connects generations.

Featured Poems:

• A Very Cheesy Poem, By: Melissa Dennison
• Cheese, By: Marie Dallas
• Heaven, By: Claudine Long
• Of Cooper’s Hill, By: David Chambers
• Farmer’s Cheese, 1971, By: Marianne Szlyk
• A Slice of Cheese, By: Arim Aslam
• My Family Celebrate Cheese, By: Diane Wilbon Parks
• Beautiful Cheeses, By: Benjamin Stone
• Tools of the Trade, By: Gabby Gilliam
• Cheese, By: Chris George
• Cheese, By: Jackie Truman
• A Creation Myth, By: Edward Alport
• Versatile Deliciousness, By: Steven Mcdonald
• I Love You, Although You Smell Like Feet, By: Calliope Irving
• Board At The Cheese Party, By: David Browne
• Cheezy, By: Vivian Boycott
• We Need To Talk About Cheese!, By: Esme Hughes
• Cheese, By: Cassia Stevens
• With Or Without Cheese, By: Christine Hickey
• Cheeses I Have Loved, By: Felice Hardy
• My Story Of Cheese, By: Katherine Cox
• My Cheese, By: Nora Conneely
• American Cheese, By: Mary Ethel Schmidt
• Blue, By: Tim Baker
• Pungency, By: Martin Chivaku
• Cheese, By: Mary Bone
• Cheese, By: Sistah Joy Alford

Everyone here should be so proud of their piece.

These are truly wonderful.