The announcement of the first and second place winners and the three honorable mentions in DKA's 2007 Poetry Contest.
 

DKA is thrilled to announce the names of the winners in our second annual poetry contest.

This year's double theme of inferno/paradiso inspired many excellent entries. The judges had a heavenly time reading them, but a devil of a task in narrowing down more than forty entries to get one top winner, a second place honoree, and two honorable mentions. So hellish, in fact, that we added an extra honorable mention to ease our pain. We will also seek to publish others that shone brightly among the entries that did not place. Yes. Lots of wonderful poems await our readers.

We would like to add that, sadly, some fine poems had to be left out of consideration for the top spots, not because they lacked skill or great merit, but because they were not sufficiently speculative. That was a biggie among the judging criteria; we had to adhere to it, no matter how reluctantly.

Our thanks to all who submitted their works. Win or lose, you labored creatively and offered us your good work. That's always something to be proud of.

Now, our winners...

Honorable Mentions go to:

"Paradise" by Jenny Schwartz
"Black Hole" by C.K. Deatherage, PhD
"Atlantis" by Karen A. Romanko

Second place and a prize of $20:
"Sky Vendor" by Holly Dworken Cooley

And our first place poem, with a prize of $50, is awarded to…
"Separado" by John Kuhn

Since this is the second time John has won our poetry contest, let us point out that this was a blind competition. The judges did not know the names of the poets until after the selection of the winners. Obviously, John melds the speculative and the Christian so well with his poetic skill that his work suits the DKA vision perfectly. It's a pleasure to publish him once again.

Look for all the winning poems in our October issue. And expect some other terrific entries to show up in subsequent issues in 2007.

All of us on the DKA staff hope you will enjoy reading these excellent, emotional, and thought-provoking poems as much as we did.

God bless you all.