2026 Lyrical Iowa First-Place Poems
Lucille Morgan Wilson Award: Maggie Westvold (Ames) SIX-ON-SIX IN THE SIXTIES Six ball-bouncing girls shoot, defend, sweat through their teens. One damned wonderful dance helps fend off pubescent pain, heartache, even when a leg cramp glams on to a calf, makes you moan, beg for relief, or when that dog of a coach calls girls who play rough inside, horses.
Humorous Verse: Frank Kutchen (Des Moines) ON WRITING A MINUTE POEM From my wife’s pen, a minute flows, beyond plain prose, with a soft rhyme that’s so sublime. For me, I’d labor several days on just one phrase or measly line to redesign. The title, “Minute,” does mislead-- long hours succeed. There’s no mystique; Say it’s “A Week.”
Grant Wood Poetry Prize: Suzanna de Baca (Huxley) WOMAN WITH PLANTS Inspired by Grant Wood's Woman with Plants I did not know your mother well, only the hush that followed her name. She moved like winter light through a room, soft, deliberate, silver at the temples. Her hair, a cloud of weathered gray, framed a face lined by work and weather, hands broad as garden spades, palms remembering soil and soap. She bent toward the earth as if listening, coaxing green from reluctant ground, pressing seeds into darkness with the faith of an artist beginning in shadow. Quiet with her gifts, she worked without witness, deer lifting their antlers beneath her patient brush, circles of sinew and beads strung with small white feathers, each one signed with the small, sure curve of a feather. They say she burned every supper, forgot the clock for the sake of birds, stood dreaming at the window’s wide pane while cardinals stitched red through pine.
Traditional Forms: Skye Rozario Steinhagen (Tiffin) NO SMALL SWEETNESS It’s no small sweetness I lean to incur upon my brittle self, creased as trills of crude worms in sandy silt post-water, but a faulted swell, I am cracked yet filled, a swoon, a swollen, leaf-litter of thought swarming us, he and she, our eyes and lips, and all is urge to collect from fingertips some integral connect so crucial a draught, although only in this moment of mind, the blister forming, this processive means, ‘be’ among ‘becoming’--I wind, I wind, around the feeling, constricting draped green crossvine on pliant brush, I give over-- A lacewing cleaves to a drying clover.
Haiku: Del Todey Turner (Waterloo) deepening fog whistle of a cardinal colors my thoughts
National/World Events: Ali Arsanjani (Fairfield) THE ASH OF THE STRATEGY The sky is torn with streaks of fire, but is the benefit clear, for whom? The iron wings bring death and pyre, but it is near for whom? A shrewd instigator watches from the hills with silent, calculating eyes; The strategist resets the gear, but steers it for whom? The cradle where the children slept is now a bed of stone; A mother’s scream is all they hear — it is clear for whom. The pomegranate trees are charred, the soil is choked with lead; The harvest of this hollow year, the benefit clear for whom? They weigh the gain in barrels sold and borders newly drawn; The chaos, the orphan’s salt and bitter tear, but is it clear for whom? The distant shore feels tremors from the desert's aching heart; A shadow falls on western gates—the unjust fear for whom? Observe, Shahed, the maps redrawn in fresh red and bitter ink; The victor’s crown is bought with blood—but my dear, for whom? Operations in the Middle East Feb 28, 2026
Poems for Children: Laura Sohl-Cryer (Cedar Falls) THE FARTING HEDGEHOGS A little hedgehog leaves a toot, While sitting in a puddle. He giggles, thinks that it’s a hoot, Then calls his mom to cuddle. The hedgehog mom wiggles her snout, And sniffs the woodland air. “You tooted!” she shouts with a silly pout. But her baby doesn’t care. He flattens his little hedgehog quills, Ready for her embrace. She nestles next to him beneath the hills, A smirk on her fuzzy face. Then suddenly behind their tiny tails, The mud begins to bubble Beside two unsuspecting snails, Who immediately smell some trouble. Two farting hedgehogs giggle with joy. And share a great big squeeze. The hedgehog mom snuggling her boy While wind blows through the trees.
College: Taeda Bakker (Standon, ND; Dordt University, Sioux Center, IA) HARNESSING My grandfather steps from his paint-stripped shed In his crisp plaid shirt, With a harness dangling on his arm. He grins and rubs his horse’s neck. I stand across the rail, with a brush for its auburn coat. We collar, bridle, buckle, cinch, Run the lines through rings and to the bit. “let’s see if they cooperate,” he says. We hitch the team, And drive them through the farmyard in the falling light. Across the shadows of the trees, then out the gate and down the drive. Harness jingles, gravel crunches softly under hooves. When we stop to breathe the still air, everything is in its place.
High School: Emilee Rushton (Grade 10, West Fork High School, Sheffield, IA; Teacher: Destiny Hagenow) ICE They call it ice. But it burns instead of freezing. hits before winter ever comes. They treat skin as a passport. color as a confession. Like accents are evidence. Like being brown or silent means you're guilty of existing. They don't ask about houses that build houses they'll never be allowed to live in, or backs bent so others can stand tall. Judgments come fast. A glance. A badge, a clipboard. A decision made before your name ever has a chance to speak. Your skin tells a story they think they already know, a book they think they've already read. Ice pretends it's just a policy. just rules. But rules don't cry in the back of vans. rules don’t take kids from their homes. They say we're just doing our job, as if jobs choose who gets broken. As if following orders has ever been the same as being right.
Middle School: Jeremiah A. Kuenzli (Grade 8, St. Albert Schools, Council Bluffs, IA; Teacher: Ann Coombs) THE SHIFTING SEASONS It begins with small tell-tale signs: a blade of grass, the drip of water. Then a bluebell, a daisy - they are sure signs of spring seeping in. Where there was once cold, an inviting warmth radiates out. Where a stream was iced over, a trickle turns to a happy, gurgling chuckle. Spring comes and goes, then the warmth turns to heat. Thunderstorms and rainbows; the blue sky an ever-changing kaleidoscope. The sun rises and falls, the moon smiling down on the summer nights. Constellations shifting as the seasons change, from heat to refreshing cool. Summer draws to a close as calmer, more serene season takes control. The leaves of the trees, changing from vibrant green to honey-gold and fire-red An autumn breeze rustles leaves, peacefulness only rivaled by perfect silence. White clouds dance merrily in the sky as the leaves carpet the forest floor. A colder wind brings with it a shroud of soft grey clouds, the sky hiding its face. The trees naked, bare without their leaves, as the first flake flies for freedom. A downy blanket of snow hugging the ground close as winter reigns. But then, a warm breath of hope as the cycle starts again, enduring eternally.
Elementary: Ellie Potter (Grade 3, Prairie City Elementary, Monroe, IA; Teacher: Brian Adams) EXCLAMATORY! My best friend’s finger tips Touching the keys on the keyboard Pressing all the keys. Each time she presses a key on the rainbow sparkle computer they glow orange glitter! It sounds like clicking like the sound of fidgets “hit clips.” It is clicking like your tongue stuck at the top of your mouth falling quickly while defying gravity. That safely lands on the bottom of your mouth and makes a really loud clicking noise. After it makes that really loud clicking noise my friend laughs so hard that it sounds like a dying elephant! I laughed so hard too that I even cried!