posted by: Kevin McFadden

The Virginia Arts of the Book Center congratulates Hailey Leithauser of Silver Spring, MD, whose poem “Pip, Mid-Sea” was selected to be the winner of the Chapter Verse contest. Her grand prize includes 30 limited edition broadsides created by artists at the VABC and an appearance on Poetry Daily’s website (www.poems.com).

If it’s been a while since you read Moby Dick, Pip is the musical, low-ranking, African American boy on the Pequod who is abandoned at sea for a time before being rescued. His transcendant and maddening experience  on the open water is the subject of the poem:

Pip, Mid-Sea

Dear muddler and paddler of puddles,
dear huddler of egotist oceans,
dear floater, dear rower of mania,
your captain is calling,
a god of horizon, a lord of the maelstrom.
He’s roaring and rumbling;
he has a lantern in hand,
he has a whale by the tail,
your pilot, your master.
Dear lunatic wader,
delirious thrasher, white horses saddler,
dear fop of glad madness,
take grip of your wits,
your buoy, your ballast;
come back to your helmsman;
return to your wheelman,
your whaler, your angler, your savior, your anchor.

–Hailey Leithauser

Congratulations to our honorable mentions as well:

Dan Albergotti, Conway, SC, for “Exeunt”
Kathleen Winter, Glen Ellen, CA, for “Wrong Sonnet: Multiplicity”

Thanks to all who entered the contest and stay tuned for details on next year’s theme. The Virginia Arts of the Book Center holds an annual poetry broadside contest; “Chapter Verse” was our fifth annual contest. To see the broadside from the winner of last year’s contest and others from our series, click HERE.

Filed under: Announcements, Hot off the Presses on September 1st, 2010