it's me, tom, talk

as fog not cheap & dead

that tree was a phone

cracked as winter's up

a little girl's eyes

          zooming

after fade of motor

cycle makes you

wonder, says her mother

have good days, says the

baker, faded have

good days out the

door, down the street

i'm lost as that, good

as fog not eyes & bodies

yawn a school—

it's me, tom, school

as fog not eyes & bodies

after fade of motor

again i get

beat up & move school

to school thru race

riot as if body were

speech — it is, & that was

the 90s, in shadow, much

as body's a path from a bruise

like a trumpet — it's been it's been

         this afterlife

we got hung up on

& sat outside to see

& couldn't you yawned

the hallway groaned the strings

are eyes shot out a trumpet

like care could

happen in a house that

counts for you — look at all these kids —

i give myself what they

gave me over & over — the institutions,

i mean & the kicks to the head

there's my name

it's a black hole

i shovel things in

an if notes a blues in a crumb

clip the money where your

home was cement where

the mouth is our violent need

to shovel out description

for the hum

under the ash

POETRY Judge's Comments

Ryan Eckes' "age of the forklift" begins with a simple assertion of identity: "it's me, tom." But the poem's simplicity ends there. Who is tom? He's at least these things: "it's me, tom, talk" and "it's me, tom, school." But his multiple identities are in turn linked to a repeated image of fog: "talk / as fog not cheap and dead," and "school / as fog not eyes and bodies." Over the course of the poem we learn that, like fog, tom's identities have indefinite boundaries: "out / the door, down the street / i'm lost as that, good / as fog." The poem makes us ask: Why is it good to be lost, why is it good to be fog? Perhaps because "body's a path from a bruise." Again and again, the poem argues that violence is a kind of education in identity: "i give myself what they / gave me over & over — the institutions, / i mean & the kicks to the head." Though I am startled by the brutal stutters of the poem's syntax and repetitions, I am also moved by them, just as I am startled and moved by the last time the poem revisits the question of tom's identity: "there's my name / it's a black hole / i shovel things in." By the poem's end, tom is neither tom, nor talk, nor school, nor fog. He's been reduced to nothing, his poetic language in service of "our violent need / to shovel out description / for the hum / under the ash." I love those last two lines, mysterious and bleak. Their masterful music haunts me, leaving me with the belief that "the hum / under the ash" is the sound of poetry itself — persistent and indestructible, even when broken. —Brian Teare

ABOUT THE JUDGE: Raised in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Brian Teare is currently an assistant professor at Temple University. His first collection of poetry, The Room Where I Was Born, won the Brittingham Prize in 2003 and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry in 2004. Next came Sight Map in 2009 and Pleasure in 2010. His upcoming collection, Companion Grasses, will be published in 2013 by Omnidawn. Teare is also the founder of the "one-man micropress" Albion Books. Find out more at brianteare.net.