Some of the 1100 entries for Common Good Books’ 2014 iteration of the “Love Poems” contest.

Common Good Books proprietor Garrison Keillor hosted a “celebration of poetry” at Macalester College’s Weyerhauser Chapel this past Sunday afternoon – a lovely way to round out National Poetry Month. The event was held in honor of the indie bookshop’s second annual “Love Poems” competition; a St. Paul-based author and editor of Park Bugle community newspaper, Kristal Leebrick, earned the laurels this year, taking home first prize in the national contest.

More than 1,000 folks from around the country submitted love poems this year. That said, according to the press announcement, a majority of responses came from writers here in Minnesota (“it’s only cold outside here, apparently; we’re warm on the inside”). From a pool of 1,100 entries, the 2014 “Love Poems” judges – Garrison Keillor and poets Tom Hennen (Darkness Sticks to Everything: New and Collected Poems) and Patricia Hampl (Woman before an Aquarium and Resort and Other Poems) – chose 25 finalists. In a charming blog post about the selection process, Keillor says, “There was a lot to admire everywhere we looked:”

A few poets wrote about lost love, ex-lovers, betrayal, the death of lovers, but almost all of the entrants addressed love in the present tense, including an ode to cheese (‘Swiss, Swiss, it’s you I miss,/Oh my Cheddar, you’re even better’), an ode to old hymns (‘Tears come. I can’t join in with the congregation./It’s my mother, long ago, humming,/”Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.’), to a soldier’s helmet known as a K-pot (‘Fragile shell that’s spun from Kevlar thread,/you have one purpose: save my pounding head’), an erotic ode to gardening (‘Weeks of dirty foreplay—/fingers deep in you,/the ripe stench of your earthly perfumes/mounting as I keep you wet/and pluck at your musky weeds—-climax in produce’).

From among finalists, in addition to the victor, four runners-up were named:  Edwin Romond (Wind Gap, Pa.) for “One Good Thing;” Kathleen Novak (Minneapolis, Minn.) for “At Louie Arco’s;” Ann Harrington (St. Paul, Minn.) for “Shoveling;” and Chet Corey (Bloomington, Minn.) for “Love Poem Late in Life.” For winning first prize in Common Good Books’ “Love Poems” contest, Leebrick will receive $1,000; the runners-up will each receive $250.

The victorious poem, “New year love,” by Kristal Leebrick:

New year love

I remember our breath in the icy air and how the northern lights gathered in a haze at the horizon, spread up past the water tower then vanished into the dark. I remember that January night in North Dakota: We left the dance, the hoods of our dads’ air force parkas zipped tight, our bare hands pulled into the coat sleeves. We ran into the wind down the drifting sidewalks of our eighth-grade lives to the brick-and-clapboard row houses on Spruce Street. We ducked between buildings and you pulled me close. A flickering light from someone’s TV screen. A kitchen window. Your fingers tracing my face. Your hair brushing my eyes. Your skin, your lips. My legs. My heart. I remember that January night in North Dakota, but I can’t remember your name.