Static Challenge Winners

Static was fun because there really wasn’t one way to take it. Across the top 30 static became everything from radio noise and crossed signals to grief, attraction, anxiety, memory and the general buzz of having too much going on in your head.

The prompt could stretch pretty far, and a lot of you ran with that. Whatever static meant to you, the trick was making us feel it.

🏆 Winners

Over the Air by Tyler Clark

Tyler Clark's poem feels like spinning a radio dial through grief, rage, jokes and exhaustion, never quite finding that clean signal.

Neural Storm by Lamar Wiggins

Lamar Wiggins gives static a body: the buzzing head, the stalled speech, the tests that keep coming.

Static in the Skin by Caitlin Charlton

Caitlin Charlton really runs with the sound of static here. All the glitches, cracks, and interruptions give the anger underneath them somewhere to go.

Electric TVs by Silver Daux

Silver Daux had me at that first insult and things only get weirder and more electric from there.

R҉A҉D҉I҉O҉ ҉-҉ ҉S҉T҉A҉T҉I҉C҉ by 𝐑𝐌𝐒

The best part of RMS’s poem is the kid under the blankets treating a transistor radio like classified equipment.

🎖️ Runners-up

• feed by Raistlin Allen

• The Static Between Us by Ashley Wrigley

• Night Shift by Lana V Lynx

• Static by Hannah Moore

• TV Static by J "Griffin" Rooms

• Brain Waves by Sarah O'Grady

• The Telltale Signs by Paul Stewart

• The Rhythm of The Same Old by Andrea Corwin

• Addiction's Whisper by Gabriel Huizenga

• The Girl in Question by Edward Swafford

• Corneal Static by Sasha Desideri

• Between 98.3 and Nowhere by Iris Obscura

• becoming unstuck by ali

• The Veil by Elizabeth Lauren Jean

• The Stillness Of Motion by Kelli Sheckler-Amsden

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• The Static Between Us by Simon Aylward

• The Voices by Dana Crandell

• MOSS AGATE by jAKE RiCHARDSON

• Ka-Zing by Julie Lacksonen

• charged by Cristal S.

• Tuning by Paul A. Merkley

• Where Love Waits by Madison Jade

• Whispers by Leon Jacobs

• Concrete Sliding by Seashell Harpspring

• The Space Between by Marlena Guzowski