2016 Contest: Poetry Runner-up HEAVEN MAKE ME A WARRIOR TO SLAY ALL THE BAD MAGIC by Lauren Eggert-Crowe
Photo by Rachael Warecki.
Lauren Eggert-Crowe is the author of four poetry chapbooks. Her work has also appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Horseless Review, DIAGRAM, Water-Stone Review, and Sixth Finch, among others. She serves on the leadership team for Women Who Submit, and is the Reviews Editor at Terrain.org.
2016 poetry judge Hoa Nguyen selected “Heaven Make Me a Warrior to Slay all the Bad Magic” by Lauren Eggert-Crowe as the poetry runner-up. Hoa says:
Controlled and powerful as “a boxed up/ zephry”, this short poem speaks back to power in the power of the speaker “I” who remains inside of its particulars and positions–even as it approaches its subject with a hope for intercession.
Heaven Make Me a Warrior to Slay all the Bad Magic
by Lauren Eggert-Crowe
your voice in me
and then the ghost
of your voice
in me
Spent my last nickels
on your pretty blues
Vexing declaratives, honey-tongued
& fortune: I am still, I am
still, I am still
furious as a boxed up
zephyr. Make me make
you regret coming
towards me and my barred
elbows. Sideways thunder
on a Thursday.