BCP Juried Writing Contest - RESULTS
34 superb entries, 8 judges, 3 cash prize winners...
Black Coffee Poetry recently held its first Juried Contest on Medium.com, and piping hot poetic brews poured in from some of the best writers on the platform.
The contest ran from January 1st to 21st and we received 34 entries in total. A panel of eight caffeinated judges (Edward Swafford, Ruth Boukhari, Julia Kantic, Harry Sinclair, Pixel Floyd, River’s Writings, Midnight Young, and Viraji Ogodapola) voted on each piece as per the following criteria:
Originality
Emotional gravitas
Creativity
Formatting
Image(s) selection
Each piece was scored from 1-10 and the average determined each place.
Massive congratulations to our three winners, and thanks to everyone who submitted their words with authenticity and panache. If you didn’t enter this contest, fret not! We have plans to host another here on Substack.
Without further ado, Black Coffee Poetry’s inaugural Juried Writing Contest winners are…
FIRST PLACE - $50
Derseori: Paperback Purgatory (Avg 9.38)
Pulped, pressed, feeling
Faint forms
Of forests within me.
A flimsy form,
Fragrant with ink and fixings.
Ink flows freely for me,
Like a fatal fount,
A fiction forced upon me.
My edges fray
Like a fragile feeling.
Paper-thin,
I am flimsy and frail.
This binding, a brutal grab,
Gluing together gaps
Of a ghosted identity,
Binds my being tight.
A base book they brand me,
With my guise,
Boasting a love I barely contain
With my gross face.
They break me, gaping wide,
They crack my paper bones.
Coffee cuts,
A corrosive prick upon my skin,
Clouding the print
Of a passage.
The contents within me,
My constant prison.
I constrict,
The paper clutching in
My phantom pipe.
Each page pulled,
A puncture in my private pleas.
Their gazes glide,
A minimal motion
Across my meticulously
Made lines,
Their minds
Mostly murky, malicious,
Meandering only for a moment,
Not meeting.
A grubby mar,
Their meddling massage.
They maul me
With a manic motion,
Like I am meat to be mangled.
A gash made,
A morsel of me missing and gone.
Each satchel,
Smelling sourly of gym shoes
And hushed history,
Smothering me
Somewhere inside.
They shove me suddenly,
A shock against the harsh shell
Of a station.
Their hushed hearts.
I survey them,
These hulking humans,
Their happenings a hazy horizon.
Their scorn,
A sharp wind that hurts
My hollow heart,
The heft of my sorrow.
They touch me tenderly,
Their thumbs tracing, caressing,
They consider,
Then cast me carelessly.
Their cutting contempt,
A callous cancellation of my core,
My cherished, constant company.
I am trash, a commodity,
On a churning circuit
Of temporal trinkets.
A cheap castaway.
My pages yellow,
Like decaying dentition,
A symbol of my slow demise,
Like dust dropping down.
My corners droop
From damp decay and disinterest,
A dying duration.
Is this my doom,
My dire degradation
For daring to be damaged
And down-market?
A ballad of bitterness,
Bound by the caution
Of my creator's first creation.
I churn continuously,
The core of my content
Like currents,
A confined compilation
Of characters.
The crafted clauses,
My collections,
Now choked cries,
A clamor caged.
I crave cogitation,
A caring caress,
Turning my content,
A conscious comprehension.
A recipient, someone to release
This textual tomb.
But they are transient things,
Rushing through
The retail terrain,
Never truly tethered.
Their spirits so tone-deaf
To the text that traps me.
I am a record, not just a tale,
Rendered through torment.
My persona, a perplexing saga
They simply shun,
Submerged in their shallow
Scrutiny's.
Is this my plight,
For portraying pain so stark,
So severe,
My soul's sad state?
A precious, slender solace,
A spine-stitched surmise.
© Derseori 2025
SECOND PLACE - $30
Tiffany Harris: Zero Dark Never (Avg 9.25)
Another version where you don’t climb six decks to find me &
Between supply shelves your hands don’t shake when
Counting pallets becomes an excuse to breathe the same air &
Deep freeze fog doesn’t hide how much we want this while
Engine room grease stains my dress whites & I’ll
Finally be ready when you corner me in the p-way saying “Uma’s
Got nothing on you except for maybe height and money” &
How counseling chits stack up like love letters & maybe
I don’t pull away this time, don’t let a predator in camo khakis
Jump in between us when you try to bury your head in my hair & you
Keep finding every reason to skip mandatory evals, only to
Linger in the spaces I occupy while I pretend not to see how
Missing quarters is actually worth it if you’re nearby &
Norfolk’s demons don’t stop me from telling you how
Only time will help me heal & I can’t do this without you &
Port call paperwork doesn’t become your last written request &
Quarters still find you within division ranks, still breathing &
Rather than letting you think I really don’t want you
Standing so close to me on quarterdecks and starboard lookouts,
Time doesn’t freeze on December 29th and you don’t dare
Unlock that repair locker with stolen keys and you don’t
Vanish between rounds while I think you’re just sleeping &
Watch duty patrols still list your name on engineering rosters &
X doesn’t mark the spot on the beam where we found you suspended &
Yesterday’s best friend doesn’t become the ghost of my berthing unit &
Zero four hundred doesn’t begin my forever without Justin.
© Tiffany Harris 2025
THIRD PLACE - $15
Merr G Holleman: Wanting it All (Avg 9.13)
a seed pearl world
cocooning in Mother Oyster
luxuriating in the safe luster of layers
nestled in sculpting perfection
innocent indestructible optimism perching
with cavernous owl eyes absorbing the blink
freshly budding height-seeking sapling
bursting forth and stretching beseechingly
towards the sky of finding first chances
manicured in amazing graced hallelujahs
drenched like sinners sun-soaking
in wave-crashing shuddering moments
ignited by the fierce flame of desire
and awash in infinite possibilities
penning songs and tinkering with melodies
guitar pics and piano keys
valkyrie voices crying for choices
under destiny’s moral thumb
smoky silhouette snapshots
cigarette lighter applause scorched fingers
silkscreened hearts on the sleeves
of the rock and roll band t-shirts
worn to school on Monday morning
the greed for living
groped feverishly like sloppy kisses
stolen in dimly lit parking lots
when the dancing is over
and the bar closes down
and no one wants to go home
when promises are things to believe in
wanting it all
all of the tawdry
spicy sundew drops of living
the things not seen, the songs unheard
the travels beyond the sealed shut window
where traffic soundlessly passes by without stopping
faces pressed against the cold glass
wondering … what if
old soul harbinger
tripping trapper keeper of visions
snatching all the breath gifts
like an alien busting out the belly
screaming
hungrily hoarding those first found feelings
and ravenously sucking the juice out of them
like a ripe peach dripping down the chin
salivating sensuously in the sensation
goosebump flesh-quaking moments
imprinting unsatiable memories into the brain
before pessimistic players
pluck the dream-weaving threads
before isolating idealism with
influencer fashion fiction
wannabe like me
following fads
turning tables on trailblazers
by tilting the wheel of odds out of favor
behind backstabbing
foot on the scales of progress
going nowhere judgments
before realizing that falling
from climbing clouds
can hurt
before poor choices
scratch flawless skin
self-inflicting wounds that bleed deeper
than dying
wanting it all
but taking it all
means some things never return
they disappear and lose the charm
exposed by experience
pinballs careening from one bumper to another
banking on winning
but plummeting straight down
into the gobble hole of life
gambling on a save
quickly transitioning
spinning and spiraling forward
from living
to lived
wanting it all
anyway whispers
© Merr G. Holleman 2025
Shortlist (in no particular order)
WRITER ENTRY
Pallavi Kohli - No Warning
Lacqueredcurls - I Was Assigned to Write a Documentary
E.R. Davis - The Invention of Claws
Jozef Cain - daystar
Zivah Avraham - Apostrophe
Tochukwu - Let Out the Final Cry
Sylvara - The Endless Curse
Long list (in no particular order)
WRITER ENTRY
Felipe Leon U - Until We Come 2gether
Ahlam Ben Saga - Our Well of Oneness
ℝ𝕖𝕕 .𖥔 ݁ ˖.𝕊𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕟 - Solaria
Ann Marie - Clandestine Secrets
Diane Foster - The Silence that Takes
Brutally Beautiful - Ruin of Heart and Marrow
Lee Byrd - I Lost My Voice
Saint Fear - The Grey
Andy Edge - What Light Remains
L.N. Wyman - Look at how they Grin
Denis Kohit Tirkey. - Modern Love
J. Kayla - Sugar
Gemini May - Eclipsed In The Darkness Of His Love
Jill Eng - Lost in Sputtering Morphine
TzeLin Sam - Dissipate
John Hansen PAL - Cryptic Poetry
Gabriella Trofin-Tatár - Winter's Nocturne
Kylie Parsons - I Rise
Janaka Stagnaro - When Death Makes Itself Known at the Worst Time
Jan C. McLarty - Dumpster Diving Perspectives
Manasi Kamat - Trust is Loose
Bella Smith - Erase, Obey, Repeat
Dhanistha - Times of the Pendulum
So much magic. Judges, you deserve a break and some chilled lattes.
The real winner is all the friends we made along the way (sorry I couldn't resist)