2023 December 2023 Illinois State Poetry Society's winning poems: Synapses are Dying and Paper Boat by Bakul Banerjee
The Paper Boat (Form: Viator) 2nd Place Winner
The
paper boat floated down the stream.
Why
do I remember its crimson sail?
Or
was it the setting sun that colored it?
You
wrapped your palm around mine.
As
I dug into the mud, my feet wobbled.
The
paper boat floated down the stream.
Your
right arm was by me. I leaned
to
you on an impulse to steady myself.
Distant
thunder and lightning neared
with
pelting rain. The stream swelled.
The paper boat floated down the stream
faster. The wet white sail crumpled.
I
willed myself into an implausible reverie.
The
boat and I became one. How did I know
that it would be a vanishing memory?
The paper boat floated down the stream.
2023 October 15, Poems in Rivulets 35, Meeting You, Swimming in School,
2023 October 1, An Immigrant Woman's First Job https://www.immigrantbengalis.com/first-job.html
2023 June 1, Delivering Macaroni, Red Noise Collective https://www.rednoisecollective.com/delivering-macaroni
2023 February 18, Addison Center of Arts hosts Expressions:
Arts and Verse 2023. Art works of members of Addison Center of Arts will be
displayed. Illinois State Poetry Society members will read the Ekphrastic poems
based on the art work. I will read my poem Miraculous Flights. For more
information, see http://www.addisoncenterforthearts.com/expressions2023.html
This event is sponsored by Illinois Arts Council.
2023 January Bengali Association of Greater Chicago (BAGC) Newsletter: Abide in Me: an essay on Bakul’s journey to becoming the first woman priest at a mainstream Bengali temple in the U.S. https://online.fliphtml5.com/dzxja/xkft/#p=1 Page 5
