THE STEGER Prize For Poetry
Mission Statement
by Anhvu Buchanan
I. The Struggle
Because no one ever gives us a “how to” brochure
we fumble at times with our rosy-cheeked portraits
unsure of where our words are going
or how fast or how slow to work in our images.
But in the end anything is better than being abstinent.
So we grab our pen and with abrupt movements
we fill our notebooks and create love,
or what modern academics these days call art.
II. The Process
We pursue the delicate words that we can never touch,
words that hide underneath bridges and pace the
shorelines of our dreams in nothing but trench coats.
So we try to be more intimate with these words by
sticking out our forked tongues, shaped like pens,
toward the seducing sky. Some paint truth into wrinkles
on a black canvas with just the stars of a torn November night,
while others carve stone into masterpieces using only
the patience of their eyes. In makeshift studios,
words and beats come together like moths to a flame
and the result allows us to hip to the hop of our earphones,
whose sound drags the beauty of air deep into the
chambers of our hearts.
III. The Next Step
The future isn’t as grim as the reaper
but rather youthful and exuberant
like a playground filled with weak-kneed parents
and children racing toward ice cream trucks.
When the time comes to measure our lives,
it will be measured by the beauty of our art,
not by the size of history books or museums.
And what tomorrow brings rest on our backs,
and as artists, though our pockets are empty,
we must stand collectively, stripped for the world to see
like skeletons to the wind and simply exist.
So let us embrace the future
with our arms as wide as camera lenses,
whose photographs will be the fingerprints of our souls.
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