Pushcart Nominations 2022

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Origami Poems Project - Pushcart Prize Nominations 2022

Our 6 Nominated Poems

2022 Pushcart 6 Covers

If air was heavy – Dan Fitzgerald

If air was heavy

If air was heavy
and I was not,
my home would be in the sky
with strolling clouds as neighbors.
Birds would fly up to say hello.
Rain would always fall beneath my feet.
In the evening,
when the sun has gone to rest,
the moon and I will sit together
counting our lucky stars.

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Dan Fitzgerald lives quietly in Pontiac, Illinois, tending to home and garden. His poems have been published in The Writer’s Journal, PKA Advocate, Nomad’s Choir and many others. His work is also included in several anthologies.

Summer of 2020 - Laurie Kolp

Summer of 2020

There were wolves
living in our neighborhood.
Each night at 8 p.m.,
I heard them howl.

When boredom struck,
they came out from the woods,
these lonely wolves
in a verbless neighborhood.

Orchestrated by adults,
lockdown kids would
howl from their front
doors in unison, a yowl

of “wolves” coming to life
in neighborhoods.
Each night at 8 p.m.,
I heard them howl.

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Laurie Kolp is an avid runner and lover of nature living in southeast Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs. She is the author of Upon the Blue Couch and Hello, It's Your Mother. She enjoys writing found poetry because it creates restraints and unleashes inhibitions at the same time. Laurie is currently working on a project to honor her father, who passed away unexpectedly in 2021.
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Breathing In, Breathing Out - Darrell Petska

Breathing In, Breathing Out

On the Earth
spinning in space
around the Sun
spinning in space
within the galaxy
spinning in space

until mind
ceasing to spin
weds space
endlessly spinning

time’s window
opening again
to all possibilities.

Darrell Petska is a retired engineering editor and a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and fiction can be found in 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, Verse Virtual, POETiCA REViEW and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). A father of five and grandfather of six, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.

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Communion - Vivian Wagner

Communion

Birches stand like
undiscovered saints
out my window, patient
and calm, even as
a wintering wind
blows through them.
They bow and bless,
forgiving the trespasses
of ravens and red squirrels,
while a magpie flashes
a waft of indigo incense,
and the moon shifts
slightly in her seat.

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Vivian Wagner’s work has appeared in Slice Magazine, Muse/A Journal, Forage Poetry Journal, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Gone Lawn, Gastro Obscura, The Atlantic, Narratively, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, Bending Genres, and other publications. She's the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House); and four poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press), and Spells of the Apocalypse (Thirty West Publishing House). Her website: http://vivianwagner.net/.

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the big why - Peter Roberts

the big why

why is there something?
because nothingness is much
too much to bear,
existence is
the lighter load,
the easier thing.

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Peter Roberts has poems forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, & have had poems & stories published in a number of venues, including Coffin Bell, LabLit.com, Illumen, Meniscus, phase shift (a microchap from Origami Poems Project), Haikuniverse, Shoreline of Infinity, Scifaikuest, Shot Glass Journal, The Chaffin Journal, Nature "Futures", Bitter Oleander, Lilliput Review, The Road Not Taken, Contemporary Verse 2, Poetry Salzburg Review, The South Carolina Review, Astropoetica, Café Irreal, Ars Medica, The Wisconsin Review, The William and Mary Review, New York Quarterly, & many more. Web Site: https://god-and-country.info/personal.html

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Uffda - Mo Soulis

Uffda

An expression popularized by
Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota.
It translates as “Oh there” and is
typically an expression of some
degree of negativity.

Uffda can therefore be a substitute
for common obscenities, as well as
general-purpose expressions of
exhaustion, dismay, or even
positive expressions of surprise or
astonishment.

How Uffda Got His Name*

There are two versions of how the
baby Uffda got his name:

1. The mid-wife encouraged his
mother Heleena, to push with vigor.
His mother, with great exertion
shouted “Uffda!” and out popped
a little boy. Holy Cow!

2. After he was born the midwife
held him up for his father Otis to
see him for the first time —
Otis exclaimed, “Uffda!”

* It was deemed prudent by Heleena
to go with the first version.
Stern faced, Otis, agreed.

Childhood:

Uffda loved the idea of being
descended from Viking warriors,
as Otis always reminded him.
Yet, due to the influence of his
mother, Uffda developed an
easy going attitude.

He never seemed to get too
bothered one way or another,
until Otis gave him his first
Viking hand axe. There was some
unpleasantness, you betcha!
- dogs missing tails, village children
being terrorized by a screaming
five-year-old swinging an axe over
his head, dead birds —
and a few other minor incidents.

As Young Man:

As Uffda grew he became somewhat
handsome. Village mothers said,
“Boy, that Uffda is lookin’ not too bad,
ya know! Their daughters agreed.
One day Helleena said, “Uffda, I believe
you have great potential to satisfy a
young woman as a husband.”

“Oh boy” thought Uffda. “If I could win
the beautiful Freya, them there village
boys would know I’m a man.”
It was right then when Uffda fell in love
for the first time — with his Potential.

But could he fall in love with Freya?
Or she with him?

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Mo Soulis is retired and lives in Black Mountain, NC. He is co-author of 'Wonder, Joy, Simple Peace,' a collection of 36 ‘Haikai no Renga’ verse that can be found on Amazon.

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All original work published by the Origami Poems Project is considered for the annual Pushcart Prize nominations.

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