OPA is pleased to announce the following winners in its 2025 Odes of October contest.
First prize is awarded for "Lemons in the Seventeenth Century," by Marci Rich. First prize includes an award of $65 and inclusion in the 2026 issue of Common Threads, as well being published below.
Second prize goes to John Hunt for his poem, "Only the Blues." This prize includes an award of $25, will be published in the 2026 issue of Common Threads, and appears below.
Third prize goes to Jonathan Smith for "40 Leaves.". This prize includes an award of $10, will be published in the 2026 issue of Common Threads, and appears below.
This year, the judge also chose four poems for Honorable Mention:
- Shirley Valencia's poem, "Oblivion"
- Rosalie Hendon's poem, "Penelope to Odysseus"
- Jo Anne Moser Gibbon's poem, "I Contain Multitudes"
- Jonathan Smith's poem, "Where Jane Goodall Stood"
Sincerest thanks to our judge for this year's contest, Annette Gagliardi, and to all the OPA members who submitted poems.
First Prize: Marci Rich
Lemons in the Seventeenth Century
When Pieter Claesz painted
yellow lemons against
a backdrop of muted green,
the shock of color cleared
the palate.
The olives, an afterthought.
He sought to draw the eye to the right,
toward a hobnail goblet of water
balancing the tableau.
The overturned vessel at the left
was, perhaps, disturbed
by the clumsy girl
hired to fetch that water.
Or for other things.
She walked some way
to the well and back,
lugging the bucket awkwardly
over the cobblestones.
She did this for love,
for all the talk of love
murmured in the studio,
where the dim light
obscured their desire —
shadows in chiaroscuro.
Love it was, then.
Otherwise, why
would she walk so far
and back to help the master?
For the sake of art?
To quench his thirst?
Did someone ask—
someone from the guild, perhaps?—
Pieter, why is one glass empty and the other half-full?
Was he thinking of the awkward, hired girl?
Were the lemons that bitter?
Was the price of desire that dear?
Second Prize: John Hunt
Only the Blues
If you’d asked Gip Gipson,
he would have told you there ain’t no black, no white,
only the blues,
making it sound like
the blues talks to everyone the same,
with twelve bars
and a shuffle beat.
The first time I heard the blues
it went inside me
and wouldn’t come out,
nothing like the way “It’s My Party”
left me waitng for another catchy tune.
Nothing like that.
More like going to church,
but not my grandad’s church.
Maybe something like “You Don’t Own Me”
because no matter how hard
I press my white ear
to blues-black vinyl,
there’s something
I still don’t understand,
and even Ma Rainey couldn’t change that
by singing her heart out
right here in front of me
because the blues was born black,
and if you’d asked Gip Gipson,
he would have told you
there ain’t no black, no white,
only the blues,
and he wasn’t about to kick you out of church
just because your great-granddaddy
might have been the devil.
Third Prize: Jonathan Smith
40 Leaves
I, a schoolboy, assigned to sheathe
in booklet pages forty leaves,
from towering oaks to stopped-up eaves
to litter on the forest floor.
I met Grandfather at his home
where bovines under buckeyes roam,
where he could guide me as I comb
the treasures on the forest floor.
Through the forest autumn trim,
through the sunlight growing dim,
although his face was normally grim
a look I had not seen before.
His worries, iron, seem to melt.
In its place a solace smelt.
A molten memory I felt:
I watched him smile in sycamores.
When my life here is surely done
and meet again, our worries gone,
let’s make the forty forty-one
with leaves from Tree of Life adorned.