Odes of October 2024 Contest Winners Announced

OPA is pleased to announce that our judge for 2024, Karen Scott, has chosen the three winners and three runners-up for the 2024 Odes of October contest.

First prize is awarded for "Restless Peace," by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. First prize includes an award of $65 and inclusion in the 2025 issue of Common Threads, as well being published below.

Second prize goes to "Scarecrow," by Dr. Anna Cates. This prize includes an award of $25 and appears below.

Third prize goes to "Fall," also by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. This prize includes an award of $10 and appears below.

Honorable mention poems were:

• "Rite of Passage," by Claire Scott Rubin
• "Alone in Silence," by Jonathan Smith
• "Assassination Attempt Haiku," by Susan Glassmeyer

Karen said she found her task made more difficult by the high quality of submissions, so each participant should be congratulated for their work. We thank them for participating and being a member of the OPA.

A special thanks goes to judge Karen Scott, for her insightful and diligent deliberations.

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First Prize: Jo Anne Moser Gibbons

Restless Peace

daybreak walks

always 

his blue hoodie

Through double cast-iron gates a maze of algaed paths leads me toward stones strewn with autumn’s crisp confetti and a confusion of names, dates,notes—reports of lives, deaths, rest. Over there, by the hilltop clearing near almost skeletal scarlet maples, one white headstone marks where prayers and songs around a simple wooden box once resounded love, loss, finality. Here he lies, tucked too soon alongside his grandma’s grave. The upright family limestone serves as seat for our whispered tete-a-tete that only lovers share: one wanders somewhere unknown, the other wonders where next to go.

graveside taps

echoing still—

mourning doves

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Second Prize: Dr. Ann Cates

Scarecrow

To you, clever farmer, corn is gold,
Each tassel crowning. And ah, the harvest moon!
And yet, you crucify, the soul,
A husk, at alter, scat of coon.

You have no right to judge me—
My heartless trunk, my hollow gaze—
I pose, a stiff, in my wrecked ’do, post maze,
Right where you left me, loose thighs flabby
in the breeze.

A few bad apples lurk in every bounty,
Or so they say—
Tares among the wheat—
But there’s a price to pay for doing me that way.

You knife a broken grin into pumpkins
Then chunk them—a waste of food.
You’re not so good.
The Grim Reaper harvests, too.
A little gore and folly
Before the mistletoe and holly is your game.

I do blame you, though in your likeness, I am.
But ah, both glorious and wretched is man,
Who loves dirty laundry—that old rock song—
And that’s all I am, minus sticks and straw,
And a knot of baler twine.

But do not mistake your ineptitude for mine
If your frightful makeshift Frankenstein
Attracts, instead of scaring,
Crows, merging with me in one dark mood,
Amid your nightmare, brooding.

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Third Prize: Jo Anne Moser Gibbons 

Fall

Her marigolds flash lush
September morning saffron as
the gurney heads toward
waiting ambulance.
Again.

What happened? “I just fell.”
Simple statement, constant sobs,
painful agony. She can’t move or
explain why or how.
EMTs act—now.

Déjà vu of last winter’s midnight call—
blood outpouring, her voice trembling:
“I just fell. I don’t know how.”
EMTs took over then.
Again.

My neighborly nudges echo:
Take your time…No rush…Use your cane...
Don’t forget to wear your fall alert necklace.
Always her reply: “Mostly I do. But I’m 97.
Be real.”

Her reality now: broken hip, eye
contusion, cardiac issues, confusion.
Surgery, rehab, nursing home, then...
Neighbors missing longtime neighbors.
Again.

So I water her prized begonias
on the porch, trim back summer’s-end
daisies, daily deadhead dozens of
knee-high marigolds—then she’ll
see blooms when she comes home again.

Again?
Be real.