Continued from Page 8
“It was such an interesting challenge,”
said Carlsen, winner in the college cate-
gory, who wrote “Trailers” describing her
north Nevada homeland. “How do we get
used to feeling pain? How to accept it?
“I wrote about those painful feelings as a
queer kid in cowboy country,” Carlsen said.
“How you get stuck in a place. I’ve made
my own way for more than 15 years in the
Northwest, but I’ve been shaped by how I
grew up. Every time I visit home I swear
I’m never coming back, yet all that sun
and blue sky, the vast expanse, the amaz-
ing quiet. It’s bittersweet. Beautiful. Heart-
breaking. The Northwest is soft and com-
forting, but no matter how much you love
someplace else, home always calls you
home.”
Ransdell, whose poetry has been fea-
tured in the “American Life in Poetry” web
series and is the coordinator of the Manza-
nita PoetryFest, said it was difficult to fig-
ure out what to write that would fit the tradi-
tion theme.
“I’m an older white woman,” she
explained. “What do I have in common
with Jericho Brown’s perceptions and back-
ground? But as I read his work, he’s so
rooted in his own origins. He knows where
he comes from. I like poetry when it’s
talking about real experience. His poems
are so personal, I started thinking about that.
My poems are rooted in my own Midwest-
ern past.”
Ransdell said her poem, “By Way of
Introduction” sprung from an exercise
during a Manzanita Writers’ Series work-
shop with poet Wendy Willis.
Rub, the high school winner, isn’t who
some people would expect. He spends most
of his time on the football field, playing as
as quarterback for Astoria High School.
“I’ve always been kind of writing poetry,
I just didn’t know it,” said Rub. “Even when
I was little I had this notebook and I’d write
down things that would pop into my head.
Nothing deepor even sentences. It wasn’t
until last year’s poetry unit in (literature
class) that my teacher encouraged me to
keep writing poems and I thought, ‘Oh, this
is poetry.’
“I don’t know why, but I always had
this image of poetry being old fashioned —
French men in dim cafes with cigarettes and
weird hats,” Rub said. “I didn’t know how
modern and universal poetry could be. Once
I understood that, I started writing with
intent.”
When asked about his poem, “tradition,
curses,” that has some very dark notes, Rub
admits, “Yeah. I read it to my parents and
they were, ‘Are you OK? Are you good?’ I
was. I am, I feel like definitely I’m OK. The
biggest thing is, writing poetry helps me
‘Trailers’ by Elisa Carlsen
walk to the back door
aluminum, powder coated, hollow
open it and look outside — down
to a yard of leftovers, corrugated
fields, and fixers
up to a backyard of stars in velve-
teen range
and colors that call you home,
and hold you to this basin,
like you never had a chance.
I swear, every time I leave will be
the last.
I get as far as the rain sometimes.
Emily Ransdell is the community winner of
The Writer’s Guild of Astoria poetry contest.
‘By Way of Introduction’
by Emily Ransdell
my mother calls me Petunia
though hers never bloom.
I am part empty flower pot, part lead
paint.
she is thumbed-through,
a magazine of do-it-yourself projects
left unfinished, a cotton housedress worn
unhemmed.
she drinks Jack daniels from a juice glass,
ashtray on her knees, lawnchair under
backyard peach trees in the swelter of
summer nights.
That’s where she was when her water
broke.
Four weeks early, drunken bees careening,
all the peaches left unpicked.
Elisa Carlsen is the college winner of The Writer’s Guide of Astoria poetry contest.
open up. It brings up these feelings and then
it’s letting them go. It’s a kind of therapy.
“What’s critical to this poem is the jump
from idea to idea,” added Rub. “I really
wanted people to fill in the pieces and make
their own sense of it. I like that. That some-
times the thoughts aren’t exactly connected.
I’ll continue writing poetry and I hope I will
never stop.”
The three are eagerly anticipating Friday
and the opportunity to meet Brown and to
read their poems on stage.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Carlsen said.
“I don’t usually win anything. It’s shocking,
I honestly can’t believe it. It might be the
coolest thing that may happen. Just to talk to
him (Brown). He’s such a beautiful person.”
“I just can’t believe it,” said Ransdell.
“I’m so thrilled. I can’t think about being in
the same room with him.”
Rub’s participation, however, may be up
in air. He may have to pre-record his read-
ing and appear by video. The event could
conflict with a football game, so he’s got a
pretty big dilemma. “I’m not sure how that’s
going to work out,” Rub said.
I shoulda named you alberta, she says.
all my life I’ve had to hear that.
sometimes she calls me sweetie pie. says
you can tell
a lot about a person by the kind
of pie they like. Take you, she said
one night, a little juiced.
you’re the blackberry type.
your perfume alone is praise.
you’re what I’d say
if I prayed.
Thursday, November 4, 2021 // 9