surf-hushed in dusk's first breath

by Editor-in-Chief Mary Bast

As you'll note below in links to Justin Hunt's many publications and prizes over the past few years, it's no surprise that this prolific poet won Bacopa Literary Review 2015's second-place poetry prize:  

Autumn, Huntington Beach

They curl in sand,
October in their sagging
skin, pocked bodies
poured bronze with sun.

Others sit, lips and teeth
as dull as their chairs
corroded frames, hair
frayed like plastic seats,

time unraveled. Men
plump into years or shrink
on bone, knees knobbing
into wind, last probes

of day. Women murmur,
cull words from brine,
sigh until they're sated,
surf-hushed in dusk's

first breath. Soon, dark
will come. They will stand,
gather belongings, plod
gray sand and dunes

back to their Harleys,
campers and tents. Soon,
but still they sit or lie, eyes
seaward, empty moons--

no thoughts of leaving,
no thoughts at all. 

In 2015, Justin's poems appeared in Comstock Review (2nd prize, 2015 Muriel Craft Bailey Contest for "Two West and a Half South"), Atlanta Review (International Publication Prize for "Oblivion," Fall Poetry Issue, 2015), Kansas City Voices (Whispering Prairie Press, 1st place for "Of Light and Time"), Spoon River Poetry Review's 2015 Editors' Prize Contest ("Nocturne" was 1st runner-up), 2015 Freshwater Review ("My Mother, My Father"), and Northern Colorado Writers Pooled Ink's annual poetry contest ("Cold Night in March" was Editor's Pick). 

Justin's poem "On the Phone with Kansas" appears in the poetry collection What Matters (Jacar Press, 2013) and his poem "Half-Light" in Pinesong (North Carolina Poetry Society, 2013). He was also published three years in a row in Main Street Rag's Kakalak ("Requiem in Wide Open Minor" in 2013, "Baseball" in 2014, and "Who Looks for You" in 2015). 

Submissions open until June 30, 2016

Bacopa Literary Review 2016

Over the next few months we'll give samples of what we're looking for by highlighting work we respect, some from Bacopa Literary Review and some from other sources. 

Here's Julia Wagner's poem "Coming to Center," first prize poetry winner in the 2014 Bacopa:

Not seeking novelty, but permission,
music provided the first movement.

I would come to understand the world
through those lessons.

The Arabesque, the Frappe, the Jete—
rhetoric of creative motion: my freedom.

The young body, as it trained, became impetuous:
More!

But, something derailed just then—
a danger in silences.

I did not hear well Madame's clapping rhythm  
(one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three)

but better, those holy metrical stops,
the curious pianist reading close her score.

My Glissade stretched far too long,
Madame's curious brow,

sure to meet just inside the note's rest.
Music taught this, not dance:

to be autonomous, despite the routines.
And to stop when it wanted.

Julia's book Aegis is available at Amazon.com, a collection that experiments with the connections between language and memory. The word Aegis assumes safe passage, a place holder for both word and memory.