Don’t Turn Around Challenge Winners

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Fear doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it arrives as a prickling at the back of your neck, a familiar street that suddenly feels unfamiliar, or a detail that refuses to let go.

The Don’t Turn Around challenge invited poets to explore the uneasy space between instinct and certainty, where the threat might never appear but still shapes every step forward. Whether rooted in memory, paranoia, or ordinary moments gone slightly wrong, these pieces all understand how powerful the unseen can be.

🏆 Winners

Rearward by Edward Swafford

Edward Swafford cranks the temperature with lines like 'seraphic-shaped puppets never tell-turn around,' blending dizzying language and fixation until the poem feels ready to ignite.

Ripple in Frequency by Cristal S.

The watch blinking in red lets Cristal S. turn the body’s panic into something measurable, locking in the sense that nothing needs to burst out of the shadows for dread to get under your skin.

Flight, Fight or…Freeze? by Jessica McGlaughlin

From prickling arms to flung sandals, Jessica McGlaughlin keeps the tension climbing until you're caught in the same breathless panic as the speaker.

Mildew by Amanda Abela

That recurring question, Can you keep a secret, grows more unsettling every time it returns. Amanda Abela uses the refrain to build a quiet sense of inevitability long before the flames catch.

with bated breath by Lamar Wiggins

Lamar Wiggins plants the whole poem’s anxiety in that image of the open black mailbox, turning an ordinary detail into something you can’t shake.

🎖️ Runners-up

• The Amphitheatre by Hannah Moore

• Every Step You Take by Raistlin Allen

• Ak Joldor, The White Roads by Lana V Lynx

• The Walk Home by Bride of Sound

• What Follows by Paul Stewart

• Hypervigilant Shit by Cali Loria

• Is It Still There? by Madison "Maddy" Newton

• Black Coffee by Pixel Floyd

• in the still of the night by John Cox

• Devolution by Heather Hubler

• Night Shift by Angie the Archivist 📚🪶

• Orange Passenger by Andrea Corwin

• Nerves, loose or spindled by Sam Spinelli

• It's Behind Me by Samantha Shearer

• The Timeless Lie by Kenny Penn

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• Nothing There... by Alexander McEvoy

• Monitoring Spirit by Aaron Morrison

• Where Was It? by Kera Hollow

• A Few Minutes Walk by Sasha Desideri

• Borrowed Breath by D. L. Webster

• Dancing on Ocean Glass by K.B. Silver

• Look Back by Leslie Staven

• Fear Behind by Julie Lacksonen

• Always There by Analesia Giammusso

• Scritch Scratch by Jasmine Aguilar