We are thrilled to introduce poet Bruce Guernsey as the judge for our 35th Annual Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Awards. A professor of English at Eastern Illinois University for 25 years, Guernsey was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in American Poetry in Portugal and Greece, spent four years as poet-in-residence at Virginia Wesleyan College and also served as editor of The Spoon River Poetry Review. His books of poetry include From Rain: Poems, 1970-2010 and New England Primer, and his poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, and American Scholar. To learn more about Mr. Guernsey and his work, make sure to visit his website, and mark your calendars because the deadline for contest entries is Friday, March 8, 2013. In the meantime, enjoy one of Mr. Guernsey’s poems below:
The Photographer of Funerals
Bored with brides,
their constant blinking
.
at every bulb,
the blue-eyed grooms,
.
endless birthdays,
balloons,
.
he waits
with his tripod
.
at the gate,
asks no one to smile.
.
Instead,
fills albums
.
with cloudy days,
bowed heads,
.
a prayer heard again
like the wind
.
captured
with his eye for leaves,
.
just two or three
blowing around
.
for effect,
just two or three
.
to get it right,
to remember by.
