I'd like to thank you all for my having won challenge #13 here at Poetree; I had some very good competition.

I'm happy to be the volunteer judge for the next week, if I am needed.

This week, it's another poem by Andrea Gibson that caught my eye: The Madness Vase. [tw: mention of suicide] It's the last few lines that inspire me particularly:

The trauma said, “Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones.”

But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi jumped
from the George Washington Bridge
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone.

My bones said, “Write the poems.”

I try to remember this when I worry that I'm being too maudlin, or that others don't want to hear my voice. If I can write a poem that saves me, it's all but irrelevant whether someone else is mildly irritated by my grief. I am still alive, and that is worth immeasurably more.

I just have to remember that. All of you here, I hope you can remember it as well.