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The Editors and Web Master of The Heron’s Nest are pleased to announce the results of the Readers’ Choice Awards for favorite poems and poets featured in Volume XI, 2009.

A record 123 voters provided us with their top ten poems from Volume XI. We are very grateful indeed that so many readers took the time to revisit the 492 eligible poems we published last year (in addition to memorial poems for Paul O. Williams and D. Claire Gallagher) and made their top selections known to us.

The print edition of Volume XI, to be mailed in April, will include the contents of all four quarterly issues, the entire awards report, with commentary, a section of special mention poems, and a generous sample of comments by readers on individual poems and on the voting process, plus winning entries from the illustration contest. For information on how to order, please visit http://www.haikupoet.com/nest/journal/.

And now on to the results!

Grand Prize: POEM OF THE YEAR (18 votes totaling 131 points)

mile high . . .
adding my breath
to the clouds
            — Jim Kacian (March Issue)

First Runner-up: (13 votes totaling 106 points)

Milky Way —
maybe tonight
I’ll conceive
            — Brenda J. Gannam (December issue)

Second Runner-up: (13 votes totaling 104 points)

graveside —
my breasts
leaking
            — Nora Wood (March issue)

Third Runner-up: (14 votes totaling 86 points)

honeysuckle
where you first hear
the river
            — Burnell Lippy (September issue)

Other popular poems:

85 points: “what do I know” - Yu Chang - March
73 points: “spring morning” - Christopher Herold - March
70 points: “bearing down” - Yu Chang - June
63 points: “first night out” - Laryalee Fraser - September
59 points: “cinnamon toast-” - Jennie Townsend - March
57 points: “mountain lake” - Yu Chang - March
56 points: “trail dust” - Harriot West - December
55 points: “caught” - Vladislav Vassiliev - June
53 points: “leaden sky” - Carolyn Hall - March
51 points: “first frost” - Beverley George - September
50 points: “we talk . . .” - George Swede - December
49 points: “roaring wind” - Tom Clausen - September

Altogether, 347 poems garnered points.

This category represents the total number of points awarded each poet for their entire body of work in Volume XI. The most poems an individual can have accepted in The Nest each year is eight. Obviously, the more poems a person publishes, the greater chances he or she has of attracting votes. Two poets had eight poems published during 2009 and two poets had seven. While this is always a factor in the final results, perhaps it was somewhat less so this year, as witnessed by the fact that the two poets topping the list have very clear voting margins and some other top voted poets achieved that result with many fewer poems.

To put into perspective how well the winners did: the average total points for combined works this year was 29.

GRAND PRIZE: POET OF THE YEAR ( 52 total votes for 7 of 7 poems = 314 points)

Yu Chang

First Runner-up: (23 total votes for 3 of 4 poems = 174 points)

Nora Wood

Second Runner-up (tie): (22 votes for 4 of 5 poems = 146 points)

Christopher Herold

Second Runner-up (tie): (21 votes for 2 of 2 poems = 146 points)

Jim Kacian

We would also like to commend the following poets for garnering well over the average total point score of 29:

Brenda J. Gannam : (3 of 3 poems received votes totaling 121 points)

Burnell Lippy : (2 of 2 poems received votes totaling 109 points)

Glenn G. Coats : (5 of 6 poems received votes totaling 104 points)

Sandra Simpson : (7 0f 8 poems received votes totaling 102 points)

Lorin Ford : (6 of 6 poems received votes totaling 102 points)

Carolyn Hall : (5 of 5 poems received votes totaling 101 points)

Jo McInerney : (3 of 3 poems received votes totaling 99 points)

Harriot West : (4 of 4 poems received votes totaling 95 points)

John Barlow : (8 of 8 poems received votes totaling 94 points)

Chad Lee Robinson : (6 of 6 poems received votes totaling 89)

Bob Lucky : (4 of 5 poems received votes totaling 89 points)

George Swede : (2 of 2 poems received votes totaling 83 points)

Jennie Townsend : (3 of 4 poems received votes totaling 77 points)

Marcus Larsson : (3 of 5 poems received votes totaling 75 points)

Quendryth Young : (2 of 4 poems received votes totaling 74 points)

Laryalee Fraser : (3 of 3 poems received votes totaling 70 points)

Curtis Dunlap : (4 of 5 poems received votes totaling 70 points)

Collin Barber : (4 of 5 poems received votes totaling 70 points)

Michael McClintock : (5 of 5 poems received votes totaling 69 points)

Fay Aoyagi : (2 of 4 poems received votes totaling 69 points)

Altogether, 189 poets received votes.

Congratulations to all contributors to Volume XI. Reading through the poems again, I was struck by our good fortune in being honored to publish some of your best work!

John Stevenson