Fountain (IBPC Honorable Mention)

I just received word that the most recent draft of “Fountain” (first posted in wordcurrents March 16, 2008) has received an Honorable Mention in the May Interboard Poetry Competition (IBPC). The poem was named Poem of the Week in Wild Poetry Forum, then was selected as one of three poems to represent Wild Poetry Forum in IBPC for the month of May.

Here is the most recent draft of “Fountain”, preceded by the Wild Poetry Forum Administrator’s announcement and followed by the Judge’s comment:

Many congratulations are in order for Douglas Hill who received an Honorable Mention this month in the competition. Way to go, Douglas! We are very happy for you. We would like to sincerely thank our other entrants – Dale McLain and Lois P. Jones (Emusing) – for representing WPF and for their participation. Wild sends out congratulations to all the winning poets and boards. We send special congratulations to Sarah J. Sloat, a much beloved member here at Wild too, for her first place honors for The Waters forum. Good luck to all in next month’s competition!

Honorable Mention
Fountain
by Douglas Hill
Wild Poetry Forum

I recall the spiral down the spit-fountain
in my father’s dental chamber: I leaned
too long over the sucking shiny throat,
stalled, steeling against my return to
his adept hands wielding instruments
that would drill precisely into my fault.

I lay back dry mouthed on that baroque
black barbershop chair, as if for a trim,
scissors on the sides; resigned to the rest,
longing for a sip of water, some respite.
He turned secretively as he would in
the kitchen to decant a tumbler of scotch.

The pestle riffed a hard hissing mantra:
he urged it against the mortar, mixing
the mystic silver-mercury amalgam;
then into me flooded the moment of bonding
more intimate than thirst:
his soft warm fingers in my mouth.

Judge’s Comments:
I’m the dictionary definition of a daddy’s girl, and this gentle poem–so full of specific detail, yet at its center a tender and intense moment between father and child–hit me right in the heart. –Patricia Smith

About riverwriter

Poet, playwright, duplicate bridge player, website designer, cottager, husband, father, grandfather, former athlete, carpenter, computer helper for my friends, theatre designer, backstage polymath, retired teacher of highschool English, drama, art, a baritone singer in a barbershop quartet, who knows what else? wordcurrents is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wordcurrents/ Doug also has a Facebook page, "Incognitio", related to his novels.
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