Margie Skelly

Margie Skelly’s awards include poetry:  first place from the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Poetry Memorial Awards in April, 2009, second place from the Niles Public Library Poetry Contest in May, 2009, third place from Tall Grass Writers’ Guild/Outrider Press in the anthology Falling in Love Again in 2005, first and second places in the 1990 Poets and Patrons Contest. She received second place for a short story in the National Organization for Women Fiction Contest in 2000. In 2010, she was awarded a scholarship to the Rope Walk Writers Conference in New Harmony, Indiana, and in 2009 she was awarded a scholarship to the Illinois Arts Alliance Conference in Peoria, Illinois. Her poetry has been published in Cram 2011, several Tall Grass Writers Guild anthologies put out by Outrider Press, Korone, Rambunctious Review, and Black Maria. Her fiction has been published in Primavera and her creative non-fiction in The Village Rambler. She has taught poetry writing at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and fiction writing at the Eisenhower Library in Harwood Heights, Illinois.  She just learned that a poetry chapbook of hers has been accepted for publication with a Chicago Press!

Comments on the Judging Process

Writing poetry, judging poetry---neither is always an easy task.  The former allows us to create realities, different worlds of the mind and soul that until we put pen to paper did not exist for the reader, and even for us as poets.  Judging poetry demands a hard look at imagery, theme, voice, metaphor, and lyricism.  But in the end, after reading a poem , if I could sense the poem living inside me, altering my heart or head, I knew that I may choose it for first, or second, or third place, or an honorable mention. 

The poem, "Hail," while very short, captures a moment in time that most of us can relate to:  the danger and safety of a storm.  "Casting Off" caught my attention since it reminded me of my need to de-clutter!   "Urban Anonymity" ends with a great line:  "My name is not my own."  The poet who wrote the haiku "Truth" succinctly captures one moment in war with only 17 syllables.  "Coping" goes into more details of war than"Truth, " and "Guilt flies through the air" is surely different than what we'd expect---a bullet!  The sequence of "Truth" and "Time," written by a different poet, makes us think differently about time:  "Leaves falling that's my ticktock/."  Finally, "The Scholar" gets the reader inside  of something that the scholar is trying to figure out and points to how quickly the very best thoughts we have can be lost.

To all of you who submitted, thank you for sharing a part of yourself with me, and I hope that you open up new doors for readers as you continue to embrace both the magic and difficulty of writing good poetry!

-Margie Skelly