Nancy Posey Wins the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge
Posted by Robert
Congratulations go out to the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge winner, Nancy Posey, for her collection Let the Lady Speak.
I enjoyed reading Nancy's entire collection, which includes poems referencing Gone With the Wind, Amelia Earhart, William Shakespeare, and more. As you may be able to guess from the title, this chapbook collects the voices of various women and shares them with the reader. It was a nice idea around which to build a collection.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Or Maybe the Day After That
I'm tired of thinking about Tara,
trying to save her for God knows what.
I'm tired of plenty
after all those months
of making do.
Sometimes I miss boiled turnips
and dirt under my nails.
I'm tired of dresses
made to order, petticoats
and ball gowns,
so tired I could rip these curtains
from the windows too.
I'm too tired to bear anyone's grief
but my own,
tired of apologizing
for misplaced jealousy.
I don't care if I have to loosen
my corsets after a hearty meal,
one I cooked myself.
Right now I have no plans
to make plans. Instead,
I'm going to sit right here
at the foot of the stairs
and have a good cry,
and I don't care if anyone
gives a damn or not.
Maybe tomorrow, my thoughts
will come clearer--or
maybe the day after that.
Attachment
"It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive." -James Baldwin
I was no good at being a child,
she said:
No tree-climbing or bike-riding
captured my attention.
I lived for books.
I formed my first attachments
to the people I met
between the pages
of books. Jo March
breathed air to me more
tangible than that of students
I met in my fourth grade
classroom. I knew her;
I wanted to be her.
Never having seen a farm,
I knew nonetheless the
feel of Black Beauty
beneath my saddle.
Like Pippi Longstocking,
I slept for weeks
with my feet on the pillow,
my head at the foot of the bed,
despite warnings
of the danger to my eyes,
encountering by flashlight
the lives of my other friends:
Charlotte, Wilbur,
Nancy, Bess, and George,
Freddy and Flossie,
the Count of Monte Cristo.
I too plotted my escape.
Feet
"I grant I never saw a goddess go;
my mistress when she walks treads on the ground."
-William Shakespeare
Heavy footed, even back when I didn't
weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet,
I could never slip up on anyone. I clomped
when barefoot, and in high heels, I clicked.
No one could accuse me of not trying,
though. Aware of more graceful girls,
I aspired--to no avail--to steal, unnoticed,
into their ranks but lived and breathed--
and walked--the personification of
two left feet. Dances were no different:
I trampled on the toes of luckless boys,
even tripping over my own two feet.
What vast relief, when I discovered poetry,
to find there feet content to trip along
as I directed; dactyls, iambs, trochees
all do my bidding, with unmatched grace.
*****
I asked Nancy to share a little of her thoughts on the collection, and here's what she had to say:
"I was torn between two themes, but I had written the poem in the persona of Hamlet's mother Gertrude, and I kept channeling all these women from history and literature. In my chapbook, though, I didn't limit the voice to the extraordinary or famous female. I also heard the voices of women I know. For some reason, my grandmother makes regular appearances in my poetry.
"Through November, I kept my eyes and ears open. I teach a Holocaust class at the college where I work, so when the recent little video clip showing Anne Frank peeking out her window as a neighbor couple left for their honeymoon, I was inspired to write in her voice, although that hardly seems necessary, does it? What a powerful writer that young girl was. I've also been fascinated with Amelia Earhart forever. My great grandmother kept the newspaper headlines that reported her as missing.
"This chapbook was a good experience for me to get out of my own first person accounts and to try on other personas. I have also tried to write in third person more in response to the PAD prompts.
"You may not be aware, but on the side, I have been participating since April with about twelve other PAD poets, a group we've dubbed the "Baker's Dozen." We write every day and share what we write. We are spread out all over the world--across the U.S., Canada, Spain, and Germany--but we've received and given a great deal of support through our online writing group, a Poetic Asides subsidiary."
I have heard of these Poetic Asides subsidiaries as well as established groups that use the Poetic Asides prompts and information for their writing groups. And all I can say in response is, "Thank you all so much."
As you can tell from Nancy's own words, the theme of the chapbook sort of developed on its own. It doesn't seem as if she forced herself into a box heading into the month. Plus, she allowed herself a theme that had a lot of flexibility. So, those are perhaps two take-aways from Nancy for the 2010 challenge.
*****
Earlier, I mentioned the 21 finalists ( click to continue). Well, out of those 21, five manuscripts emerged as the clear favorites to win the overall competition. Of course, Nancy's won, but here are the other four (in no particular order):
1. Ghost Flower, by Ruth Nolan
2. Women in Eden, by Alana I. Capria
3. Greeks Bearing Gifts, by Joseph Harker
4. French Lessons, by Ken Kibler
Congrats to everyone who completed the challenge!
*****
Also, I am aware of the April PAD Challenge still being unsettled. I did not want to delay the November PAD Challenge to wait on April (and then have two challenge results off track). I am still planning on getting those results announced ASAP between now and the beginning of the next challenge. But I just wanted to let everyone know I have not forgotten or given up on bringing some closure to that ill-fated challenge (that was also a huge success in so many ways--I mean, how can you call more than 25,000 new poems an ill-fated anything?).
*****
November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2009 | Personal Updates | Poetry News | Poets
Tuesday, February 02, 2010 4:18:48 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00) 
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