In Eclipse Challenge Winners

Creator Dane BH is one of our Vocal stalwarts. We’re so grateful to all of your in our Vocal community, and so thrilled by your achievements. This is the third time Dane has won one of our challenges, and she appears too on our Vocal podcast, Write Here, Write Now — take a listen if you haven’t already. But she’s not our winner because we know her: the subtlety and simplicity of we watched the world go dark. together. is what made it our winner of the In Eclipse challenge, with the grace and ease of its lines and observation. As it happens it also expresses the community spirit that means so much to us.

In second place comes Cathy Holmes, with A Smile Before the Darkness; Cathy is another creator we admire for her energy and commitment. With this brief poem she took the idea of ‘eclipse’ and considered what else it might mean:” that feeling when/ calamity stills, if just for a moment?” Dementia is a painful condition of the personality’s seeming erasure, but art can bring it into a kind of light.

And a round of applause as ever for our runners-up. John Dodge joined Vocal in 2021: his pleasing verse (eclipse) opens up a window in the celestial and the personal. This is his first placement, so an extra hurrah! Angela Hepworth’s Eclipse of Hope, of Dreams follows the rubric but has a fine prose-poem feel; the image of kissing the moon like a lover stays with us. And a special mention to Rachel Deeming for Rolling Eclipse which took our acrostic theme and really ran with it, making each word part of the puzzle. Bravo! And to all of you Vocal creators: we know your light won’t be eclipsed.

You can check out the full list of winners HERE and learn about our current challenges below: