McAndrews Contest

Poets for Human Rights announces the 2007 Anita McAndrews Award poetry winners!

The Anita McAndrews Award poetry contest was established in 2006 by Anita's seven children to commemorate their mother, a poet, artist, journalist and human rights advocate whose 82 years of life epitomized the spirit of Poets for Human Rights. This year's contest was judged by Dr. Marvin Kimbrough, Professor Emeritus and Chair of the Humanities Department, Huston-Tillotson College, Austin, Texas. Marvin has served as contest judge for Austin Poetry Society poetry contests, and is an award winning poet in her own right. Congratulations to each of the poets whose works were honored by the
contest judges. And thank you to all the poets who submitted poems
to the contests.

3rd prize was written by Adrian S. Potter of Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Why I Believe in Monsters

I believe in monsters for obvious reason
how else can I explain
what truly terrifies me
like a parent reducing a cigarette
to a scar on a toddler's body
or a husband beating his wife
with the hands he uses to caress her
or a newborn baby found abandoned
in a knotted plastic bag
on the sidewalk.

I believe in monsters because
I can't separate the idea of slavery
from the idea of America
or figure out how children
become versed in the concept of bigotry
or justify why strip malls are built
atop sacred grounds
in the name of capitalism.

I believe in monsters to survive
in this land of burning crosses
and spray-painted swastikas,
in these streets where people
aim their hostility at innocents
like loaded pistols,
in this country where the government
believes in nothing
beyond itself.

The absence of compassion has become
the cruelest form of violence.
Without an obvious enemy
we have only each other to hate.
There is a need for love
to counteract this anger
but instead we do nothing.

But a closer look would help us understand
other people's faults are nothing more
than a distorted reflection of our own,
the image of the monsters
that we ourselves are becoming.

2nd prize went to Elyse Van Breemen of Clearwater, Florida. Elyse is a multi-talented cellist, poet, journalist and story teller, known for her Mz. Goose persona, through which she entertains children of all ages. She is currently working on a non-fiction manuscript about her experiences growing up on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital.
 

Human Rights Denied. Fight!

Stoned for strolling hand and hand with her lover.
Refused work because he had no arms or legs.
Denied the right to wear a cross, to bow at noon.
Prevented from bearing a child; limit two to a family.
Human rights denied.

Incarcerated in a mental hospital
for conversation with dead husband.
"He visits in the night," she says.
Nurses ensure she swallows
her third dose of Haldol.

Denied the key to language,
the phonetic code to decipher
letters into sounds.
Mystified, the young student
stares at the page;
is declared learning disabled
by a disabled learning system.

Denied body's rights to health,
she drinks water chlorinated and fluorinated
without permission.
She eats genetically engineered food
with MSG in school lunches,
milk doctored with bovine growth hormone.
At nine she has breasts, she bleeds;
her childhood taken from her by the fat cats
of the nutritional-pharmaceutical industry.

Human rights. It takes thinking,
reading between the lines,
investigating beneath the surface
of "word-renowned" exteriors.

Human rights come only
to those who know,
who have courage to know
and see what is there
beyond pretense.
Human rights are assured only
to those who fight for them.

The 2007 Anita McAndrews Award 1st prize winner is Elizabeth Daòiel Marquis-Mayorca. Elizabeth lives in Houston, Texas, where she teaches music at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School. She receive a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU in 1997 and has had plays produced in New York, San Francisco and Austin, Texas. As a musician, she has performed in quartets, orchestras and choirs in New York, Scotland, Germany and Italy. Her poetry has been published in various publications. Her prize winning poem relates to articles 13 and 14 of the UDHR.

A rock shaped like a house, found in the mountains

The aborigines of Western Australia believe that the waking life is
an illusion,
so they dwell inside of their dreams.

The Sephardic Jews of the 16th Century were driven from Spain;
though they could not find a place to sleep, they found sanctuary
within their hope.

The gypsies of the world continually cross the borders of several
states and countries,
but they feel settled in the tribe they move with.

The birds of many species soar through several skies and sleep in
various branches,
but can only thrive in weather that suits their needs.

The exiled writers of various countries believe more in paper and in
words,
than in the land beneath their feet.

The frontiersmen of the state of Texas continued to explore the flat
land,
though the memory of the mountains never left their bones.

Musicians of all disciplines, travel the world in search of sounds,
though their only shelter may be within the music that emanates from
their souls.

This rock I hold in my hands, has fallen from the heights of the
mountain I climb;
In its stillness, I am home.