The winners of the Sidney Lanier Award Poetry Competition, sponsored by the Lanier Library, were recently announced and the winning poets were presented with their prizes on Saturday, April 9, at the Lanier Library. Presenting the awards were the North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers and Frances Flynn, the competition’s organizer.

The annual competition is open to poets from both North and South Carolina and, for the third year in a row, local poets beat out the heavy competition from distant parts of the Carolinas. There were more than 130 entries in this year’s competition.

The winner of the adult competition was Erik Bundy for his poem “Stepping Off.” Originally from Texas and now a resident of Tryon, Bundy moved here from Belgium five years ago after working for 21 years overseas as a contract specialist for the U.S. government. He writes short stories and novels and is currently working in the fantasy and science fiction genres.

The winner of the second prize was Jo Angela Edwins of Florence, S.C., for her poem “Snow in South Carolina on My Fortieth Birthday,” and Aly Goodwin of Spartanburg, S.C., won third prize for her poem “Birdsong.”

A first-time entrant in the competition, Chelsea Regoni from Campobello was the winner of both the first and second prizes of the student competition for her poems “We’re Only Human” (first prize) and “Without a Crow and Song” (second prize). Regoni is a freshman at Landrum High School.

Third prize winner in the student competition was Alison DeBusk of Lexington, N.C., for her poem “Float, Float, Float.” DeBusk is a student at North Davidson High School.

Poets receiving an honorable mention for their entries were: Connie Aiken of Zirconia, N.C., for “The State Line,” Nancy Pemberton (last year’s first prize winner) for her poems “In Dr. Brownlow’s Office” and “Snapshot,” Jean W. Ross of Columbia, S.C. for “Bridge Haunted,” Roxanne Cordonier of Taylors, S.C. for “Gutter Garden,” Monica Jones of Tryon for “Foreordained” and “Nursing Home Trilogy” and Phil Johnson of Tryon for “Concerning the Comings and Goings of Cats.”

The following is the winning poem by Erik Bundy:

Stepping Off

by Erik Bundy

Sunset sips away its light from Gunderland Park,

while the lynx-eyed blond girl in drill-bit curls

waits to see which goose-pimpled one of us

has the mustard to hurl himself off the cliff

into the shallow river already pocked with stars.

My little brother licks lips the cold color of slate,

smirks at us, then steps off into a stomach-lifting leap;

we watch the daredevil fall,

the runt with sauce enough to affront gravity

and hold his territory with older boys.

Two years later in our ranch town where folks

don’t roll up truck windows or bother about keys,

my brother and two cowboy friends borrow an empty pickup

and pull over when a blue light revolves in their rearview mirror.

Judge says prison or military, your choice.

His out-of-town girlfriend watches

from a straight-backed chair in a veteran’s hospital,

as once again the younger brother leads the older,

as in failing light, he steps off another cliff

and falls weightless into a river of unknown depth.

The following is the winning student poem by Chelsea Regoni:

We’re Only Human

by Chelsea Regoni

It’s when the ocean rushes forward.

carrying with it all the

starfish and vacant shells.

Those shells with their lives

already planned for them.

They survive for just a few

to satisfy the lonely mollusk.

And you bury your toes

inside the moist sand.

The grains are not wet from the ocean

It’s because the rain just came

pelting to our earth

to make some sort of point.

But we’re too dense to understand

what the rain wants.

Whether it needs a home

or a friend.

And we forget it’s only rain.

It doesn’t need to feel

or to know anything.

It’s when the green of

deciduous trees give up at last

to the callings of cool air

and robust sunsets.

Those leaves give under

the weight of one hundred and sixty-four days

of rustling and singing,

too tired to play

in the moonlight with the wolf

or carry a burden through the winter.

It’s when we realize that

we can be beautiful without our shell,

but no, we don’t breathe starfish

or catch the light in our salt-scented skin.

That we can fall from the sky

just to make a point,

but in the end

we will most likely lose

because we are just like the deciduous tree.

That wolf would kill us

and we can’t carry the burden at all