Fifth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2007)
Poetry
— Second Place
Bobbi Dykema Katsanis's poetry has most recently appeared in Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Litchfield Review, The Binnacle, and The Chaffin Journal. Her chapbook, The Magdalene's Notebook, was released in September 2006 from Finishing Line Press.
Hymn
to Flora
By Bobbi Dykema Katsanis
What elegant 18th-century lady —
broad brocaded skirts, lace bodice,
buckled shoes — would not have
squealed delight at the new continent's
enchantments, watercolor corymbs
and panicles of hydrangea, self-colored
with earth's salts, pedicles and perianths
of rainbow rhizome fleur-de-lis, beloved
of pre-Raphaelites, Narcissus'
gold corona, all ignoble, saturated tones,
euphorbia, catalpa, rhododendron,
ochre dreams, fanatic perfumiers,
bloom on from every balustrade, make
love to the white air, sing out
in color, fragrance, peal with living joy.