We are excited to announce that PNW poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Sheila Bender have chosen this year’s Paula Jones Gardiner Memorial Award winners: Cynthia Neely for her poem “Hopewell Bay” & Joseph Powell for his poem “Window Panes”.

The Paula Jones Gardiner Memorial Award was started by Kelli Russell Agodon and Sheila Bender in 2009 to honor the memory of beloved Seattle-area poet, teacher, and mentor, Paula Jones Gardiner, who died in 2008. Kelli and Sheila judge this $150 prize for a poem from that year’s Pontoon that best exemplifies the spirit of Paula. The poems in Pontoon are chosen from that year’s Floating Bridge Chapbook Competition submissions.

Make sure to read this year’s winning poems over at Pontoon!

“6.
I couldn’t warn you
to slow down
to settle your cells into stupor
forget your eyes
your ears
fingerprints
skin.”
-from “Hopewell Bay” by Cynthia Neely

“Then my windows banged and shook.
I saw the hawk’s dive conclude,
quail like flying semicolons.”
-from “Window Panes” by Joseph Powell