For National Poetry Month (April), the library at Whatcom Community College presented its campus community with the Kumquat Challenge. Students, staff, and faculty, past and present, were invited to participate in a poetry writing contest. The rules were simple - to write a poem that includes each of the ten supplied words.

The words are:

Billow, marvel, enough, maybe, flight, sordid, glimmer, tart, kumquat, and tide.

Thirty suggested words were supplied by library employees, and the director, Linda Lambert, chose the final ten. The list includes words that can have multiple meanings. A modicum of poetic license was allowed in determining the eligibility of entries. There were over twenty-five submissions. Judges Margaret Bikman and Ara Taylor deliberated without knowledge of the authors' identities. The invitation to participate stated that serious poems, limericks, verse, and doggerel were all welcome. The prize to each of the top three winners was their choice of a plate of cookies, brownies or scones (baked by library staff).

The library organized a poetry reading event on Friday the 13th. Whatcom Community College instructors Chad Helder and Kate Miller each read from their own works. Their works were not responses to the Kumquat challenge, but it is not known for certain that they did not use any of the challenge words. Their poems, ranging in topic from Coyotes to Neanderthal lovers through time, were delightful.

After the readings, the winners were announced. There were two student winners, an instructor winner, and an honorable mention for a seventh-grader who qualified as a former student, having attended the college’s Child Development Center at age four.

The winners are:

Alex Florence, “Enough” (student)

D. Riley Petaluna, “Beach Poem” (student)

Donna Rushing, “Sestina Written Late at Night” (adjunct faculty)

Penny McMahon, “Clouds that Billow in Asian Skies” (former student), honorable mention.

The winners read their poems, and time allowed for other participants to read their poems as well. The variety of topics and forms was astounding. Topics included the beach; love found, rejected, or lost; George W. Bush; and the sexiness of fruit. Forms included several limericks, a haiku, and a sestina (the instructor’s winning entry). Here is a sampling of the things that billow: clouds, flags, skirts, dust contrails, trees, waves, storms, blouses, pillows, breath, wind, smoke, and intestines.

The winners were evenly divided on their choice of cookies and scones. The audience also enjoyed cookies served at the event, and this reporter did hear of a secret stash of brownies.

75 booklets containing all of the submitted entries were produced and distributed. Of course, bibliographies on the library’s poetry holdings were available and poetry books were on display.