Alan Britt's poem Drinking Red Wine And Thinking About Nomenclature is the winner of our humble, little award, given in honor of HCR's two-year anniversary issue. Judges Tobi Cogswell and Jeffrey Alfier selected this poem out of a group of finalists, feeling it best displayed the spirit of Hobo Camp Review. Alan wins a cash prize and a selection of chapbooks from the judges and the editor. Enjoy the winning poem, and thanks to everyone who submitted work for this issue!
DRINKING RED WINE AND THINKING
ABOUT NOMENCLATURE
The nomenclature is green.
Fireflies ignite
tomato leaves
behind wire cages.
Words resemble lichen
spread across the contoured muscles
of a split-rail fence.
The nomenclature is green.
There’s no use
bribing fate
with a velvet, California cabernet.
Even a Parducci, 1996,
solid red sauvignon
won’t do the trick.
Of course, there’s always
a little graft and greed
when it comes
to the human senses,
those five orphans
left to explore
the universe
on their own.
But, tonight, the nomenclature is green,
and there’s nothing,
absolutely,
positively,
nothing at all
anyone can do
about that!
Alan Britt’s recent books are Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin: 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008. Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formally feral cats.
Judges
Jeffrey Alfier is a two-time Pushcart prize nominee, and a nominee for the UK’s Forward Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared recently in Vallum (Canada) and Post Road, with work forthcoming in New York Quarterly. His latest chapbook is Before the Troubadour Exits (2011). His first full-length book of poems, The Wolf Yearling, will be published in 2012, by Pecan Grove Press. He serves as co-editor of San Pedro River Review.
Tobi Cogswell is a two-time Pushcart nominee and co-recipient of the first annual Lois and Marine Robert Warden Poetry Award from Bellowing Ark. Publication credits include Willow Review, Illya’s Honey, Rhino, Slab, Blue Earth Review, Decanto (UK), Red River Review, The Stray Branch, Turbulence (UK), Spilt Milk (UK), Frostwriting (Sweden) and Hobo Camp Review among others, and are forthcoming in Iodine Poetry Journal, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Pinyon Journal, Slipstream and Chiron Review. She has three chapbooks and her full-length poetry collection “Poste Restante” is available from Bellowing Ark Press. She is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).
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