By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
The Carter County Poetry Society held their annual awards ceremony on Saturday, announcing the winners of their annual poetry contest.
The big winner of the evening was Sarah Allen, taking first place in the Grand Prix category for her piece, “A Pair of Fools.” Second place went to Charles Deuser for “The Heavenly Race.”
In the Home Sweet Home category Lorie Zientara took first place with her untitled piece, while Benita Jordan took second with her “Home Sweet Home” piece and Sandy Litteral third place with a poem titled “Of Roots and Blooms.” Honorable mentions were awarded to Amy Richardson’s “Succession” and Elain Akin’s “Earthwork Dreams of Flying.”
In the Opening the Jar category Litteral took first place with “Run Interrupted,” Dreuser second with “Fireflies,” and Jessica Justice third place with “Friend.” Honorable mentions included “The Gourmet Shelf at Big Lots” by Barbara Greer, and “Summer Jewels” by Sarah Allen.
In the Time Machine category Deuser took first with “The Wright B Flyer,” Litteral took second with “Arrival,” and Richardson third place with “The Tempo is Too Fast.” Honorable mentions were given to Billie Skelley for “Between the Pages” and to Lad Barker for “Rewind.”
In the cinquain category Janet O. Maddix took first place with an untitled cinquain about winter, Sandy Litteral second with an untitled piece about an earthworm, and Camila Haney third place with “Soft Landing.” Neal Salyers earned an honorable mention for a piece entitled “Serenity Broken,” and Sunny Barker for an untitled piece with the first line, “Breathe out.”
Crystal Barker was awarded first place in the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles category for “US Mail Service 1860-1861,” second went to Richardson for “Darkness Moves,” and third to Phillip Litteral for “Rust at the Pay Lake.” Angela Barker earned an honorable mention for her “Eulogy for Green Bean.”
In the Spiritual and Inspirational category Benita Jordan won first place with “Behold His Glory,” while Richardson came in second with “Simple Joys Live Under Our Feet,” and Skelley took third with “Eleventh Hour Epiphany.” Elaine Akin earned an honorable mention with her piece, “Looking for a Sign,” as did Larissa Tackett for her poem “Under My Tree.”
In the more relaxed Poet’s Choice category Zientara took the first place prize with “Unintended Mondrian,” with Richardson taking second place with “Remote,” and Samantha Arthurs taking third place with “Young. Barbara Greer earned an honorable mention with “When Time Moves Slow, as did Benita Jordan with “You.”
Skelley took first place in the Watchdog category with “Down the Dreadnought,” Green second with “Every War,” and Crystal Barker third place with “Survived.” Akin was given an honorable mention for the piece “Plummy’s Dog.”
In the Birds category Zientara won first with an untitled piece using the first line, “How the great loon laughs!” Lad Barker took second place with “The Birds and the Bees,” and Haney third with “Granny Check On Us.” Crystal Barker earned an honorable mention with a haiku, as did Greer with “An Hour Before Sunset.”
In the Old Sayings category Skelley took first with “Old Sayings Need to Kick the Bucket,” Sandy Litteral second with “Party Line,” and Allen third with “Sweeping Superstitions.” Lad Barker and Angela Barker earned honorable mentions with their respective pieces, “Verbatim Sorta,” and “To Marry or Not to Marry?”
Zientara took first place again in the Into the Wild category with another untitled piece that begins with the first line, “Make something out of this.” Sandy Litteral took second for “Gathering Grace,” and Akin third place with “So Far No Safari, Thank You.” Honorable mention was made for “After You’ve Gone,” by Samantha Arthurs and Jessica Justice’s “Search for the Sun.”
Finally, in the Kentucky Land category, Sandy Litteral took first place with “Paradise 1945.” Allen took second place with “The Ingleside Oak,” Richardson third with “The Place I Indulge in Sweet Moments.”
Crystal Barker earned another honorable mention in the Kentucky Land category with “Poetry Book and Patchwork Quilt,” while Haney received an honorable mention for “My Heart Belongs to the Land.”
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com