Yes, we have some winners.

As I noted in a series of seven posts Saturday, and in a couple since, we had 56 entrants. All were posted except one, which I add here:

You go to war with what you have
This lovely Christmas day
Remembering the King of Kings
Who wanted it that way

You go to war with what you have
To honor Jesus’ birth
To war you go, for otherwise
There might be peace on earth…

- Elayne Riggs

She’d included it in an email that began with Perranoski Prize nominations that got filed to that folder while her poem was overlooked. (My apologies for the oversight, Elayne.)

The judging proved difficult and challenging. We began with six judges, most TAS members, four womenn and two men. As each were to rate the top five, that permitted 30 possible selections. On our first vote, we had 24, meaning there were only a handful receiving multiple votes. I attribute this to the broad display of talent we were wrestling with.

The feedback from judges was important, too. Several thought it was unfair to rate short poems next to long, and suggested future such contests have more categories to ease this. After all, some wrote in classic styles, such as the author of Sergeant Frugal. Others wrote in free verse, haiku, limerick , and more. Some directed their poems at the war directly, others cleverly turned to coniderations of war few consider, some used it to bash Bush, some used it for uplifting messages and some used numerous Rummy quotes that an activist would appreciate even if it’s point might be lost on a professor of poetry. It proved an amazing array.

Though we are an online team, I’d initially made the call that our own members could enter and we could still judge objectively, but I overlooked the opposite reaction. More than one judge balked at nominating our own. So, rather than a display of favoritism, our members were facing discrimination against.

While admiring the integrity of that, the only satisfactory way around it occurred when those members withdrew their entries from the judging, for the best interests of all. Another act of integrity.

After all that, I recused myself from the voting and added another outsider as a judge. A second vote ensued.

In both of these votes, one entry placed first both times. However, in one of those votes, that first place entry was tied. Again, that speaks to the difficulty faced when judging such talent.

Ultimately that was the distinction between first and second place, a hair’s-breadth of difference. We have three winners. I’m awaiting email replies from each before posting the final announcement.

Which leaves the question of Honorable Mentions. From those votes, the only way to do that would be to highlight the other 21 who received a vote in the initial judging. And upon further review, there were still others fully deserving ofv such mention. I ultimately made the decision that some will find unsatisfactory, that every entrant deserves an honorable mention. Go back and read the January first poems; though you may find a handful that don’t suit your tastes, I feel certain you’ll see the vast majority were simply excellent.. I extend my congratulations and gratitude to all.

When Don Rumsfeld said “You go to war with what you have, not with what you wished you had,” it sounded, to me, like a plaintive plea for understanding from a political leader of a nation under siege, strapped for resources. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were under no direct threat from Saddam Hussein, we have a miltary budget that exceeds the next 10 largest military budgets in the world, combined. And the buildup and war preparation took place for 5 months before the first shot was fired.

We went to war with what Rumsfeld chose to have. And nerly 22 months after the invasion began, he chose to short our troops with body armor and vehicle armor and a rational plan.

These poems will stand as a testament of repudiation for Rumsfeld’s denial of responsibility. If I go to war, I hope it’s never at the behest of a man that bears nothing but excuses for his poor choices. Our troops deserve better than that.

Having said that, I just got the final reply, so the winners appear in the post below.