Poetry
The University of Iowa School of Social Work has announced the three winning poems and poets for the 2023 National Poetry Contest for Social Workers.
First Place
Coming Home to Alcoholism
by Laura Gaudette
University of Chicago, 2016
You haven’t been back in a while and you forget the white paint slathered around the house,
Over her toothy smile, dissolved into the wine. White is the color that tricksters wear
Your mother stands before you as your bullet proof dress drops to the front porch
Then you remember that white has sat in your body forever like forgotten milk
Your nostrils sting as you walk into the house.
Your skin gone green and foreign
Against the white walls. The sun glares through the sheer curtains
All your emotions cling to your bones
Even the dust tries to hide
Dinner time is the worst
The insects become restless under the varnished floorboards
The food is passed around with pleases and thank-yous, a mélange of grotesque and farm-fresh
Your stomach is empty and desperate. The snow outside gets heavier and heavier You look out the window and you see a black sheep limping away from the house Staining its path a red, so red, It must be true
Second Place
Doña Delfina / Mother Justice
by A. Gallup
University of Michigan, 2023
Doña Delfina,
They say your tears fall on hostile ground, but I know better! A roll of fat escapes the band of your scalloped apron
You pinch my flesh and twist, calling me by a true name in a barked whisper: “Big-little One”
Mothering me in your mother tongue; I pass the she-icon hung alongside dead sons and unfaithful husband
You rest before her framed in gray wisps of hair and smoke, swaddling an aching knee in goat hide
Suffering, as all Big-little Ones do
Yet here you are barefoot in sooted triumph, raising up the little to speak out Big
Tell me what you have passed through this side of the mountain
That I might cry out for antidote and strengthen my forearms in good-doing
You labored long for the wisdom in your gut
Pressing righteous anger into bread
The matriarch quietly ushering in justice as the pila gushes living water
We are sure this is not the way things have to be
Your tears seed tenderness into the hurting ground, testament to the fact that you—you know better.
Third Place
Impostor Syndrome
by Meggie Royer
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, 2022
At some point, the moon was assembled
with the intention of surpassing human knowledge -
molten, unremitting, arc of construction paper against the sky.
In Utah, a man shot his girlfriend just because he could.
No preceding history of which anyone was aware.
No wonder the parameters of human myth are so unbounded;
no wonder we think we know someone
we never knew at all.
How ardently you can be afraid -
the moon could be a planet, inhabited,
flush with our worst fears of who might reside there,
or just another glow transmitting into the dark,
like the deep, momentary terror
of a man slowing his car beside you
only to realize he’s arrived at home.
About the National Poetry Contest for Social Workers
The University of Iowa School of Social Work conducts an annual, nationwide poetry contest to affirm and encourage the creative talent of social workers and to draw attention to social work as a profession.
This year’s three judges:
Corinne Stanley lives in Iowa City and holds a Master’s in Spanish from the University of Iowa, as well as an MSW from University of Kentucky. Stanley translated and published Silencios del bosque/ Silence from the Forest (2018) by Spanish poet Esther Bendala Pavón and has two poetry collections, They Say This Is Light (1998) and Breathe into the Knowing (2014). Stanley co-creates a bilingual poetry blog, www.bilingualborderless.com, with award-winning Mexican poet Marjha Paulino. Her memoir, La Tercera Luz: A Poetic Journey through Spain, was published in 2023, and her chapbook, Down into the Upward Golden, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press.
Ellen Szabo, M.Ed., practices and promotes the use of creative writing for personal transformation and social change. She is the published author of two books: Love and Apocalypse: Externalizing Your Inner Apocalypse with Creative Writing and Saving the World One Word at a Time: Writing Cli-Fi. Her poem, I Am Here, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches the annual Creative Writing for Social Work seminar at the University of Iowa, School of Social Work. Recently, she taught Changing the World One Word at a Time: Writing Cli-Fi at the Sierra Writers Conference, and Journaling for Caregivers at the Family Caregivers Center, Mercy Hospital, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her private practice is based in Cape Ann, where she writes and teaches with a focus on how innovation and creativity can illuminate, inspire, and advocate compassionate transformation. She earned her B.A. with a concentration in English and American Literature from Harvard College, and her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University Teacher’s College.
Mercedes Bern-Klug, Director of the University of Iowa School of Social Work, is a gerontological social work scholar and a creative writing enthusiast, currently focusing on the essay. She is a TimeSlips facilitator. TimeSlips is a creative story-telling process developed by Anne Bastings for people with dementia memory loss.
Next year’s National Poetry Contest for Social Workers will accept 15-line submissions from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. All social work students and graduates from a CSWE-accredited social work program are eligible to submit one poem per year. See the University of Iowa School of Social Work website for instructions and prize amounts.
In support of creative writing and creative writers, The New Social Worker is pleased to again publish the winners of this national contest.
Creative Writing 4-Day Seminar
The University of Iowa School of Social Work also continues to host an annual creative writing seminar for social workers. Amateurs and those who have published their work are welcome to participate. For more information about this 4-day in-person writing seminar/workshop (July 14-17, 2023 in Iowa City, Iowa), please visit: https://socialwork.uiowa.edu/resources/creative-writing-social-workers