Editors' Note: We're pleased to present a poem by Anne Harding Woodworth of Washington, DC, the winner of the Musical Mood poetry contest. Her poem “Taps” will be made into a limited-edition letterpress broadside by VABC artists. Images of previous broadside winners are here. Contest poems were to engage the theme of music. Honorable mentions go to poets Mary Pinard (Roslindale, MA) for “Wanting an Accordion,” Mike Schneider (Pittsburgh, PA) for “Crazy Blues,” and Kathleen Winter (Glen Ellen, CA) for “Mia Vita Violenta.”
The Virginia Arts of the Book Center promotes the values of the humanities through appreciation of the arts of the book, visual and verbal literacy, creativity, and the fostering of traditional and contemporary skills. Selections for its annual contest on a rotating theme are made for high literary quality and suitability for visual interpretation. Information on next year’s contest will appear in the spring on the virginiabookarts.org website.
Taps
I’m going to buy a bugle
and hold it to my mouth.
Lips is all it takes. And tongue.
It’s in the breath that has no lapse,
and all through warming brass
it gives the simplest tune.
Hidden, I will blow the bugle
into life, as if the sound comes
from another county, low to high,
then lowering itself.
I need a song,
something slightly out of keeping
and behind a lone and reaching
cypress, treble clef of evergreen.
ANNE HARDING WOODWORTH
About the Poet
Musical Mood Poetry Contest
Virginia Arts of the Book Center
A program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
