2024 Gordon Parks Celebration Poetry Contest Winners Named
FORT SCOTT — Winners of the Gordon Parks Museum Poetry Contest sponsored by Helen Townsend and Trabar Associates, have been chosen. The theme was “What Fills Your Hungry Heart?”. Fifteen entries were received and the winner of First Place was Taylor Bailey, Fort Scott, KS, with the poem titled, “Turn Off the Camera”. Second Place was Logan Pinedo, Leavenworth, KS with the poem, “Homecooked”. Third Place was Karen Cayce, Wichita, KS with the poem, “Unforeseen”. Allie Allison, Pittsburg, KS, received Honorable Mention with the poem titled, “The Symphony of Love”.
First, Second, and Third place winners received cash prizes of $200, $75, and $50 respectively.
The contest was open to any emerging poet. The theme was inspired by a quote from Gordon Parks, “I’ve lived a lot, worked a lot, and smiled a lot. And I will cling to all of those blessings until my hungry heart is hopelessly exhausted.” Poets were invited to capture the essence of the theme.
Judges for the photo contest was Kansas Poet Laureate, Traci Brimhall, Poet and Author, Annette Hope-Billings and Poet, Cash Hollistah. The poetry exhibit will be on display on the Gordon Parks Museum facebook page facebook.com/fsccgpmuseum/ and the museum’s website gordonparkscenter.org.
Turn Off the Camera
You look into the all-knowing eyes of your camera
and plaintively read your well-rehearsed script.
Addressing strangers and ghosts that profess their love for you
and believe every fable that falls from your lips.
Every second of your life is laid bare online
you never learned to keep a little back for yourself.
Every want, every need that you’ve been told to have
are as easy to read as a book on the shelf.
Your words are happy and your smile is bright
but you hold yourself like you’re made from glass.
Your fans may be blind to how you really are
but I feel your distress in each breath.
You live in a mansion with all your bought friends.
You make other men jealous with your money and frills.
Your focus is shifting to the barely audible growls
of a painful hunger that food never fulfills.
You must learn when to put the camera away
find out who still speaks when the script is unwritten.
Discern between faceless strangers behind a screen
and true friends that stay when change comes unbidden.
Take stock of what’s real and burn away what isn’t.
Learning to live again, for yourself, it’s an art
but that’s what will fill your hungry heart.
Homecooked
What feeds my hungry heart
is feeding others
Giving my love to someone over and over
filling them up on this carefully crafted love
that rivals grandma’s home cooking
Something new yet familiar
a twist on an old recipe
Love seasoned to taste
What feeds my hungry heart
is opening them up
feeling that hot wave of air hit me
as I place my love casserole inside
Carefully timed to golden brown perfection
then seeing their face light up with the first mouthful
What feeds my hungry heart
is hope that I’ll get a taste
of that warm gooey center called love
served to me on ‘the good plate’
prepared special by experienced hands
stirring, mixing, and layering the ingredients
of a love just for me
Unforseen.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe there’s a God, to have faith in an unseen power. To know there’s a force you can call on for help in your darkest, most desperate hour. I know it’s not easy, I’ve been there myself, though our problems are not just the same. I know how it feels when no one is there when God is no more than a name. But I’ll tell you a secret, I pray anyway to something I can’t hear or see. I pray to the darkness, I pray to the night, or to what may be holy in me. And sometimes not always there comes a deep change. I feel peaceful, set free, and made whole. Is it God? Is it me? Has some power of the universe helped me to heal my own soul? I don’t have the answers. I can’t say for sure that what I believe in is true. But if God were a fact we wouldn’t need Faith. So I say believe and I do.