Wake Me Up When September Ends Contest Results

Wake Me Up When September Ends—Final Results

Thank you to every poet who entered. The judges read with care and generosity; the winning poems below were chosen for their emotional clarity, craft, and how fully each poem made the contest theme—endings, memory, and awakening—feel lived and necessary.

Podium

🥇 First Place—The September Crown Back to School—David Crandall Citation: A formally ambitious sestina that turns the end of summer into a childhood initiation. The poem’s recurring end‑words and precise domestic details (the Stingray bike, the rope swing, the classroom) make the transition from play to learning feel both inevitable and tender.

🥈 Second Place—The Autumn Laurel September’s Reverie—Andrea Dietrich Citation: A compressed, luminous memory of first love that travels decades without losing its specificity. The final turn—that the reverie outlives the month—reframes the poem’s longing into a durable, elegiac grace.

🥉 Third Place—The Equinox Medal Death in September—Charlotte Puddifoot Citation: An unflinching elegy whose concrete images (a birthday cake beside a burial, a patchwork skirt, oxygen cylinders) make grief physically present. The poem’s accumulation of domestic detail and its final movement create a powerful, earned transformation.

Special Literary Honors

Sestina Challenge Award—Six Returning Words Back to School—David Crandall The sestina architecture is necessary to the poem’s meaning; repetition becomes memory and movement toward growth.

The Last Door—Final Line Award September’s Reverie—Andrea Dietrich A final line that converts youthful encounter into a lifelong reverie, changing how the reader understands every preceding image.

The Autumn No One Else Saw—Image Award Death in September—Charlotte Puddifoot Objects—a necklace, a hotel room, limp clothes—become the poem’s evidence of love and loss.

The Voice That Woke Us—Voice Award As my memory rests—David Kavanagh An insomnia voice that is at once wry and haunted; the poem’s diction and small, tactile details make the speaker unforgettable.

What September Took With It—Emotional Revelation Award September Songs—Florence Bondarenko A candid, generous turn toward the younger self that transforms adolescent shame into later understanding.

The Sleeper Award Wake Her When September Ends—CayCay Godwin A short, chilling poem in which sleep becomes survival; the title’s wish is revealed as a protective strategy rather than mere escape.

Final Top Ten

1. Back to School—David Crandall (Winner)

2. September’s Reverie—Andrea Dietrich (Runner‑up)

3. Death in September—Charlotte Puddifoot (Third place)

4. Where Are You, My Beautiful One?—Fary Ghavam

5. At September’s End—Sara Kendrick

6. When September Goes—Nette Onclaud

7. September Smooch—Douglas Gillies

8. Wake Her When September Ends—CayCay Godwin

9. As my memory rests—David Kavanagh

10. Amid Falling Leaves—Sandra Haight

Honorable Mentions (11–26)—alphabetical by title, not by score

• But I Won’t Be There—Dhruv Maheshwari

• I Do Not Want to See September Come—Tuesday Watson

• I Long to Sleep Until the Leaves Have Gone—Chetta Achara

• Just Walk Away—Curtis Johnson

• Leaves in October—Mike Bayles

• My Soul’s Reason—Regina Mcintosh

• Green Point—Rachel Tait

• Rebellion Led to Her Disgrace—Lin Lane

• Reflections of September—Frederic Parker

• Please Wake Me Up—Christine Watts

• September—Ann Peck

• September’s End—Karen Jones

• September Songs—Florence Bondarenko

• Summer in My Pockets—John Anderson

• The Date of Demise—Ink Empress

• When September Ends You Must Wake Me—Paula Goldsmith

A short note to Honorable Mentions

To every poet named among our Honorable Mentions: thank you. Your poems deepened this contest and reminded us why we read poetry—because of the small, exact moments that open into larger truths. Each piece here carried a distinct voice, a fresh image, or a brave emotional turn; together you made the field richer and more humane. Please accept this recognition as a celebration of craft and courage—keep writing, keep surprising us.

Blessings,

Daniel Henry Rodgers