Help Me Celebrate Good News. One Of My Poems Has Been Nominated For a Pushcart Prize!

The Big Dipper 

I have been writing poetry since I was six years old. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to have had several of my poems published, including one in Tokyo, Japan just a couple of years ago.

When I’m traveling, I will scratch out the first few stanzas of a poem on a diner’s grease stained napkins, on torn bits of brown paper bags from purchases made here and there and in notebooks, which now there are many of.

Yet, I repeated a familiar stanza-counted style for most of my work. Last year, when my son Ian was visiting, I read him one of my newest pieces, as I often do when he is near. He said it sounded great but then added that I should change things up a bit, try new styles, “play with it a bit.” 

I continued writing poetry in my favored style. Each was published in one literary journal or another, but Ian’s words tugged on my creative voice. Too, a poem I had started writing about a man I stood behind at White Bites, a food pop-up in Dillingham, Alaska, and all he said was calling me back to it. 

This piece about the words I heard this man say in almost one breath needed to be written in a long-winding river of a poem, typed as one, too. To do so, I would need to jump out of my favored poetic style and write this work as concrete poetry. 

Here’s what happened after I wrote it and sent it to my pool of long-standing readers. One read it and messaged me, “I think I met that man.” Another wrote me, “I see him so clearly as if I was the one standing behind him in line.” 

Then it found a home on the pages of a literacy journal. The Poetry Editor of the journal sent me an email after they read my poem, which I titled  Big Dipper, that they “adored” this poem and said it was typed out and written via an artist’s eye, an artist as poet. 

I wrote my piece like this curving brick wall which serves as the header above the Poetry Foundation’s definition of concrete poetry.  

What very recently happened made me understand that my son asking me to dance a little with my poetry, to step away from my seasoned style and to “play” with how I creatively expressed myself would create the opportunity for surprising recognition.

My poem Big Dipper was just nominated by that literary journal, by that Poetry Editor that wrote she “adored” it, for a Pushcart Prize, a national award for the best writing, poetry and prose, by authors published by a small press in 2025.

OK, let me write that again. I have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry!! I invite you to celebrate with me by dancing in your kitchen, clapping your hands over head and by inviting yourself to “play” at something new in your creative endeavors. 

I am so absolutely blown away and so jazzed! Thank you to my son who keeps encouraging me to grow, to blossom outside that terracotta container! Thank you, Ian! 

Here is the poem. Do note that a Maqii is a hot sauna usually in a small shed behind the main house. 

Big Dipper

Fifties

   something 

      man.

         Chipped 

            front tooth.

             Tied back,

               grey-streaked,

                black hair.

                 Seahawks’

                 baseball cap.

                 Scent of 

                 sage.

                 Waiting 

                for his

              White Bites

            order:

          reindeer 

        hot dog &

      salted 

    fries.

   Pulls 

   a chewed

    toothpick 

      from his 

       chapped lips, 

         turns to me

           and says, 

            “The Earth  

                has shifted.

                  Big Dipper’s 

                   handle

                    used to be

                    tilted up.

                    You’d think 

                    it would’ve 

                   spilled

                  its milky

                 treasure.

                Looked 

              last night.

            That

          thing is

       flat like a

     c-iron

   on my

  loaned

  Coleman.

    Climate 

      change 

        shifted 

          the globe

            more than

              we know.

                Forget 

                  Earth’s 

                    rotation 

                      due to 

                        the four 

                          seasons.

                          That handle 

                           has moved.

                            But, 

                            the milk

                            of the way 

                            keeps

                           filling 

                          the big 

                         dipper

                        for those

                      Aura 

                    Borealis’

                  babies

               who

            whisper

          back to

       their

    heard 

  parents’

  whistle.

  Oh,

   one

      last 

        thing,

          watch

             the stars,

               constellations,

                 meteors;

                   all of that.

                    They 

                      have

                       more 

                       to say

                      about 

                     coming 

                    days

                  than

               corporate 

             lies and 

          B.S.

      internet 

   swill.”

  His

 White Bites 

 order

 handed 

  over

   in a 

    grease-

      stained,

       paper

         sack,

           he started 

            to go, 

             then

               turned 

                back.

                “Need 

                company?

                Got my 

               friend’s 

              truck.

            Maqii’s 

          hot.”

                 

Susan Slocum Dyer