Kakalak 2006 Introduction
A poet’s hope: to be like some valley cheese, local, but prized everywhere. -- W.H. Auden
From the outset, our goal has been to gather a sampling of the best poetry in North and South Carolina. We hope, in reading the work that follows, you’ll agree we succeeded. Some poems have a decidedly Carolina spin to them -- pieces about textile mills and summer nights on the porch. Others couldn’t be farther from this region’s topics, like our first place winner, "Argentina’s Huge Beaver Problem" by Alex Grant. There are poems about the past, present and future. Poems about aging, parenting, snakes and orthodontia. An amazing range of topics from poets of all walks of life. Due to space limitations, we had to turn away many talented poets. The poems you’ll find on these pages are the ones we came back to again and again. In many cases, these are the poems that the judges, reading separately, all chose. The poems that we wish we had written ourselves. Richard Allen Taylor gets credit for the idea of the contest and subsequent anthology. Beth Cagle Burt and Lisa Zerkle joined him and proceeded with an "if you build it they will come" approach. Fred Chappell, the former poet laureate of North Carolina, heard of the anthology and offered two of his previously unpublished poems. Soon, the current poets laureate of South and North Carolina, Marjory Heath Wentworth and Katherine Stripling Byer, followed suit. Wentworth and Byer also spread the word by publicizing the contest on their websites. Entries were slow but steady at first. We thought we would be doing very well to reach 500 entries. Being poets (and procrastinators) ourselves, we expected to have a surge of entries around the deadline, but never expected the onslaught that appeared in the mailbox. When the smoke cleared, we had over 1100 poems -- a stack larger than the Charlotte phone book. And mixed in with all those poems were amazing art entries. Quilts, sculptures, photographs, etchings, collages, and paintings. You’ll see some of those works on the cover and throughout the book. Our sincere thanks go to Susan Ludvigson, who served as final judge for the poetry contest. She had to choose just three winners from a group of twenty stellar poems. An unenviable task she did well. Thanks also to the poets laureate for sharing their work with us and their help with publicity. Anne Hicks and M. Scott Douglass were responsible for transforming a pile of data into this beautiful book you hold in your hands. They deserve sainthood for putting up with our design and publishing ignorance. The editors also thank their spouses for endless moral support, in addition to financial contributions, mail handling, and website design. We couldn’t have done it without you. Many dozens of poets and artists, many of whom we have never met, lifted us with encouraging words and urged their friends and acquaintances to participate in the contest. Lastly, we thank all the talented poets who took a chance on a funny-named contest they had never heard of before. Thank you for trusting us with your money and your work. We dedicate this book to you. Kakalak, work of Carolina poets, to be prized everywhere. Lisa Zerkle, Beth Cagle Burt, Richard Allen Taylor co-editors