I'm honored to have received Honorable Mention in The Prose Poem’s 2025 Prose Poetry Competition. From the competition judge, Ingrid Jendrzejewski:

This poem’s form is part of its meaning, and I really admire its commitment to that long, unbroken breath. The absence of punctuation creates a steady, trudging, almost hypnotic movement—perfect for a piece that begins in late-winter stasis and mud, and that asks us to sit for a moment with what isn’t ‘enticing or beautiful’ yet. I love the specificity of the ecology in this poem, and the ending feels like a benediction for patience, with the repeated ‘most certainly’ becoming its own kind of comfort.

Marsh

standing on a bridge across a marsh with cattails dried out in late winter sunshine with redwing blackbirds trilling and many other dried leaves resting on the mud so very much mud where once water flowed or stood still or almost still but now is gone all because of beavers who changed their minds somewhere downstream and even though it’s out of sight the one standing on the bridge knows that their dam isn’t as it once was which is why the water drained away and now there’s just so much mud which is frankly not very enticing or beautiful but most certainly serves an important role in the ecosystem of which the one standing on the bridge is unaware but nevertheless spring will come and most certainly something new and green will grow up out of the mud and transform the mud-filled marsh into something quite beautiful if only the one standing on the bridge will have the patience and strength to return to encounter and experience the inevitable transformation

Originally published by The Prose Poem.