Submissions for Poetry are open to one poem that was completed for coursework during the last calendar year. Submissions should not exceed 5 pages. Emmy Parton wrote the 2nd place submission in the Poetry category for the 2021 President’s Writing Awards.
About Emmy
Emmy Louise Parton (pen name Emmy L.P.) is a born and raised Boisean. A current English Teaching student at Boise State University, Emmy has been passionate about language arts her entire life. Her areas of authorial interest range from creative nonfiction essays, to speculative fiction and poetry. She is currently working on a collection of multimedia poetry based on true crimes that border on the supernatural. Most days you can find Emmy walking the Julia Davis Greenbelt while listening to podcasts about cold cases, or audiobooks in the feminist literary canon. After graduating from BSU, she plans to achieve her MFA in Creative Writing, following in the footsteps of her beloved mentor, Malia Collins, Idaho’s current Writer-in-Residence. She will be spending her summer interning at The Cabin, helping Idaho’s children discover their own inner writers.
Hagley Wood–Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?
What can the bellman tell you
That hasn’t been spoken before?
Screamed into the sky,
Arms stretched, and heads high
As waves crash over the moor.
What could that night sky give you
You haven’t got elsewhere before?
A darkness that lasts
Through the sins of our pasts,
As the devil stares in through the door.
What did his siren voice sell you?
A sound that you’ve not heard before,
Over ivy that crawls
Through cracks in your walls
Bending light through the mists of his lore.
So- what can the Wych Elm show you
That’s never been dreamed of before?
Hollowed out to the roots
Where blue crepe-sole boots
Sing “Bella lies here evermore.”