an entry somewhere else

So, as I was looking for work over the past few weeks, I came across a poetry contest by the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD. The contest seemed to have only ten entrants; thus, I was in the top ten. The judges were Adrian Mitchell, Ralph Steadman (who does artwork for Flying Dog), and his wife. One might expect I’m going to say, I won. No, I didn’t. Mr Steadman did a run down and said a few words about each poem. This is what he said about my poem: Anthony Zak’s ‘Brief Biography through Beer’ has poignant glimpses of an admonished childhood.

I didn’t think the poem was reallly finished, but there was a deadline. The poem follows–

A Brief Biography through Beer

My old man once said,
“You can covet a man’s wife
but never his beer.”
Or maybe it was the other way around.
This could explain a lot
abt my old man.

My mother told me to stay
away from alcohol;
no, she never approved.
She stood by & clucked her tongue
as I parsed its syntax,
explored its iambs,
& merged Eden’s on my palate.

When my heart was stomped
& broken,
my best friend put a beer
in my hand & said, “Cheers.”
That beer was the best I’d ever had.

“A good woman and a good beer
are of the same cut,” I tell anyone who’ll listen.
–teasing, granite, consistent,
tempting, celebratory, passionate,
headstrong, comforting.

& then, one day, my older brother
handed me a skunked beer
that I had to spit out.
He said, “Don’t ever pass
on a free beer.”

I knew then that my brother
wd always be a jerk,
my mother was wrong,
my father wasn’t wise,
& my best friend was right—

only beer can tell you the truth.