The Visual Prompt Quarterly Contest is meant to inspire people to create work based on a prompt containing three images. The contest submission can either be poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or experimental literary in nature. It can contain all three images or just one.
No entry fee. Winning submission is published on our site below and the winner is awarded $25.
Contest was judged by the staff of Helen: a literary magazine.
No entry fee. Winning submission is published on our site below and the winner is awarded $25.
Contest was judged by the staff of Helen: a literary magazine.
Our winning selection is a poem:
“Parked” by J.M. Collins
We also had two honorable mentions:
“Notes from the Nursing Home” by Dana Chiueh
“I am Forgetting The Eyes That Grew Inside of Me” by Shyanne Roberts
“Parked” by J.M. Collins
We also had two honorable mentions:
“Notes from the Nursing Home” by Dana Chiueh
“I am Forgetting The Eyes That Grew Inside of Me” by Shyanne Roberts
“Parked”
by J.M. Collins
a dingy, van on thoroughfare-
a refuge to anywhere.
you regard yourself in the rearview,
dawn’s light conflicts with
the lingering darkness
across the leather of your face
you fiddle with the gearshift-
you know what happens in reverse:
burning rubber,
headlights blurring night with day,
and you are zero.
you can only imagine what lies in drive:
a smile open like a door,
hands raised in welcome.
you want it, but,
you are in neutral,
on the precipice of going forward.
a refuge to anywhere.
you regard yourself in the rearview,
dawn’s light conflicts with
the lingering darkness
across the leather of your face
you fiddle with the gearshift-
you know what happens in reverse:
burning rubber,
headlights blurring night with day,
and you are zero.
you can only imagine what lies in drive:
a smile open like a door,
hands raised in welcome.
you want it, but,
you are in neutral,
on the precipice of going forward.
J.M. Collins is a 24 year old college graduate from the University of Alabama.
