Unfiltered Challenge Winners

Mesh Toraskar from London takes first place in our Unfiltered challenge, with their poem city of fog. This was a fascinating challenge to judge, because our prompt allowed… well, almost anything, so we trusted our instincts as you trusted yours. We loved the images here, ‘everything that fell through/ and how gorgeous/ that nothing here belongs to no one else.’ It had the sense of pouring, relentless forward motion of thought that spoke to the challenge and offered a mournful beauty.

In second place Joe Nasta’s Honeydew was sensually lovely, poetry, sex, food, a real embodied specificity all came together here, ‘the work of the words’, as the poet has it, celebrated in so many forms. And it was tough to whittle down our runners-up because there was so much strong work here.

Plaudits to Michèle Nardelli for Leaving, about a mother’s death; the poem returns the dying woman to the girl she was but which her daughter never knew. Kateresa’s Go Fish goes to similar places, the poet scattering ashes in a river… the poem’s conversational tone takes us into its subject, allowing for both light and dark. Lars Knutson’s jagged edges of the mind took all our gods and set them against and with each other in a fine philosophical musing.

Thank you — a special thanks — for all these unfiltered thoughts. Vocal is a place where we can be ourselves; we so appreciate your presence here.

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