Congrats to Mary Anker For Her Poem Honoring NH Poets Laureates

Congrats to Mary Anker from Portsmouth, NH, for her winning poem celebrating New Hampshires Poets Laureates. Mary's "Poets Say What Love Is" deftly incorporates lines from an incredible eleven state laureates: Walter Butts, Richard Eberhart,  Patricia Fargnoli, Alice Fogel, Donald Hall, Marie Harris, Cynthia Huntington, Jane Kenyon, Maxine Kumin, Paul Scott Mower, and Eleanor Vinton. 

Here's how Mary described her writing process for this poem:

"The fun of research began in December 2019.  The poets presented as compelling characters, then teachers, heroes, and finally beloveds.  Initially I thought that some might stand out and speak to creating an honoring poem.  They all stood out!  They all write about love: for nature, for words, for spouse, children, parents, and of details, geography, self, and their need to write. 

I began to collect lines...The seed began to grow while on buses, airplanes, at a desk, a kitchen table, on a lap.  It practically birthed itself."

Poets Say What Love Is
                  

We spoke quietly about summers end
a hundred white daffodils
his green-eyed scatter-brain love
a thick gauze of rain stalls over Mt. Monadnock
a love unloved was nevertheless itself

I loved to be lured under the outstretched wings
of hemlocks
the path is visible even on moonless nights
I wanted to go down those steeps
into a place of the unknown
desire lines

So much has changed since then
what he remembers is something vaster
from war to New Hampshire
from Chicago to Mt. Chocorua
stairs go both up and down without ever moving
no deposit.  no return.

Let evening come
and the rain will fall tomorrow
without ceasing, I believe
I am a blossom pressed in a book
but there's work to be done,
and love.