The Cerebral Catalyst

Bird Flu fans, your wait is over. Today we are proud to announce the winners of The Cerebral Catalyst's third annual Bird Flu Poetry Contest. We've had our biggest contestant turnout yet, and the competition has been fierce. There were so many entries, in fact, that it was necessary to bring in a team of celebrity judges this year. All the votes have been counted, all the metaphors have been extended to their utmost (and sometimes beyond), and we are now ready to crown this year's Pandemic Poetry champions. The prize for winning is being a winner, and make no mistake Bird Flu fans, these people are winners, heroes, genuine literary athletes, worthy of any and all bragging that is sure to take place on their blogs and future author bios.

And the winners are...

First Place:
The Power of Blood by Juliet Lamb
"I am pulling blood from the wing of a tern for America."

Second Place:
Hawkish by Christopher Danaher
"My own children used to mock me for cruising around in four-wheel drive with crates of supplies under the seats."

Third Place:
(R)Evolution by Brandon Dennett
"If man would but bend the Ear to the Beak he might hear the words from one platonic form to another..."

Runners-Up:
When She Meets Her Maker by Aleathia Drehmer
A Little Bird Told Me to Run a Virus Scan on All Your Poems by Katharine Polenberg

Our Distinguished Panel of Celebrity Judges:
This year our winners were selected by a panel of three Cerebral Catalyst celebrity judges; Kristin Blank, Cait Stuff, and Joseph "Captain Fun" Conty. In the spirit of the BFPC, our judges have contributed their own Bird Flu poems, including "The Bird Flu Sonata," our first-ever musical bird flu poem!

Joseph L. Conty, Jr.: The Bird Flu Sonata
Cait Stuff: A Parcel of Earth
Kristin Blank: A Modern Fable

November 1, 2007:

Update: This contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered! Winners will be announced on November 12th.

Note: If you have not yet received a confirmation e-mail regarding your entry, it may be have been lost. E-mail any questions to editor@cerebralcatalyst.com.

October 1, 2007

Here at Cerebral Catalyst Headquarters, we've been wondering whether or not to hold the Bird Flu Poetry Contest again this year. After all, it hasn't come up in conversation much, lately. Turn on the news, and you'll hear a lot about Election 2008, Global Warming, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, and The Rock's new movie, but lately, at least in the U.S., nobody's talking about the H5N1 Avian Influenza plague, which was arguably 2005's biggest and scariest current event mainstay. I'll be honest, Election 2008 poetry could be damned hilarious, and maybe we'll do that one later, but I was hesitant to throw away our most popular tradition.

And then, in last week's issue of New Scientist, I saw this:

"Water fowl usually carry the virus without showing any symptoms. This time, 10,000 of them died in a very short period — this could be something quite new."
—Lo Wing-lok of the Hong Kong Society for Infectious Diseases on an outbreak of H5N1 flu that has killed 10,000 ducks in two weeks in Guangdong province, China (Bloomberg, 18 September). From New Scientist vol. 195 No. 2622, September 22-28 2007.

Well, that certainly got my attention. A little research reveals that Bird Flu is still Scary Plague Numero Uno all over Asia, and new this year, Europe! Creepy? Sure. Weird? You betcha. Still the funniest pandemic since Mad Cow? Damn straight. And that means it's time for you to write some more poems about it!

As I've maintained all along (and no one has yet proven otherwise), The Cerebral Catalyst is still the foremost authority on the growing genre of Bird Flu Poetry. And this year, we're gonna raise the bar even higher.

Here are the specifics:

1. All contest entries should be e-mailed to submissions@cerebralcatalyst.com.

2. Only one entry per person!

3. Entries will be accepted from October 1 through October 31, 2007. No late entries will be accepted.

4. The winners and runners-up will be announced and published on November 12, 2007.

5. Entries must be about Bird Flu, or something along those lines. As before, there are plenty of directions to take this in. Check out our growing Pandemic Poetry directory if you still don't know what a Bird Flu Poem is.

6. The prize for winning the contest is that you get to be a winner. You do want to be a winner, don't you?

Good luck!

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