Poetry contest winner amazed at number, age range of local writers

A beautiful description of how poets give birth to wonderful words earned the top prize during a recent poetry contest.
 
Poet Elyse Tera was awarded first-place honors for her poem "Many are the Midwives" during a competition sponsored by the Yuma Art Center and Arizona Western College. Tera was followed by Chris Howard in second place with "Flora" and 4th Avenue Junior High Student Filemeno Munoz in third place with the poem "Still with Fear."
 
Tera, who owns Acupuncture of Yuma, said she was thrilled to receive her first formal honor for writing. But Tera stressed she was even more tickled to see so many people celebrating poetry, especially involving so many generations of writers.
 
"It was interesting to see what older people wrote about and how young people in high school just used different words to explain the same thing," Tera said. "The generational differences disappeared. The words and style were different, but essentially we all wrote about the same thing."
 
The poetry event was held at the Yuma Art Center, where the writers of 10 top poems - taken from hundreds of submissions - were invited to read their pieces.
 
The remaining top 10 poets, in no particular order, were as follows:

• Cheri Vaughn: "We've Asked When, Then We Did it All Again"

• Pam Drapala: "The Ninth Month"

• Tony Conte: "Veneration"

• Norma Hebel: "Weapons of War"

• Janet Udart: "Under Lillipads"

• Hannah Houston: "Spider"

• Isaed Urias: "Advice for the Dancer"

  Tera entered last year's poetry event and was a finalist.

"I have been writing poetry and short stories for pretty much 20 years," she said. "I used to write short stories when I was in college as a way to work through college. I've been published in journals and magazines."
 
The native of Toronto, Canada, moved to Yuma in 2007.
 
"I used to do a lot of traditional, formal poetry, writing in Chaucerian and Shakespearian English. I've written poems in Middle English form, because what else am I going to do!" Tera said, laughing. "I like working with forms a lot. I've been writing sonnets, villanelles and a form of Persian poetry called ghazal."
 
But after all those years taking the tried and true paths, Tera is breaking out into new literary frontiers.
 
"Now I've been interested in sort of pushing the boundaries of form," she said. "I'm staying within the framework, but sort of exploring around the edges a lot more."

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THE WINNING POEM:

"Many are the Midwives"

By Elsye Tera


Many are the midwives

who birth words into the world

in the long lonely labor

from conception to creation.


Blessed are they, more than muse,

who breathe wind into words

who ease words into rows

who tease rows into stanzas

that stand serene, solitary or

assembled, composed.


Blessed are the midwives

who lift the winds of voice

and the music of tongue,

turning phrases into song.