Amber Tamblyn BUST Magazine and Buzznet’s Poetry Contest Winners Announced!

Earlier this year, Buzznet had the opportunity to collab with 127 Hours star and avid poet Amber Tamblyn to find some of the best poets on the web during our Poetry Month Contest. We received an overwhelming amount of incredible entries and can’t imagine how long it must have taken for Amber to read them all!

Here’s what Amber had to say about all the spectacular entries…

“In honor of the belated National Poetry Month, I asked two of my favorite outlets to help me create a poetry competition. Buzznet and Bust Magazine said something to the affect of, “Heck ya, Dawg!” After hundreds of inspiring submissions were sent in over the month of April, and after reading them all, I chose a winner that I thought most embodies not only what it means to be a poet but how a poem gets written.

“Because it was so hard to make a decision on a winner, I decided to pick two runners up as well which can be found on the Bust website. Hope you love this poem as much as I loved putting this contest together.”

Amber chose Chelsea Comeau as her first place winner. Chelsea is a 24 year old Canadian poet who says “writing is her greatest passion in life.” She draws inspiration from other poems, stories, photographs, and the work of Bob Dylan. She currently is working as an Education Assistant and hopes to one day publish the full-length book of poetry she is developing. Check out Chelsea’s winning poem “we all begin somewhere.”

we all begin somewhere

i kept myself drunk for days,

wrote profound ideas on the back of a

mcdonalds napkin whose

integrity was brought into question when

the ink started to bleed through and

my thoughts seemed suddenly suspicious.

i began to resent rorschach deeply.

so i fled to the streets, again,

slept in parked cars that weren’t mine,

and tossed back china whites at

slam poetry events. i

staggered up to the microphone,

where a spotlight fell on me like new-morning sunlight.

i wept hysterically, and everyone applauded.

it was a very real thing for them to see.

Amber had this to say about the poem:

“This poem, for me, reflects how any great poem is created. An experience told with seamless and thought provocing metaphor that unfolds and reveals itself without telling the reader it is doing so. Lines like “Slept in parked cars that weren’t mine and tossed back China whites at slam poetry events” give a fantastic sense that something is happening, something is growing and changing, though you may not know what just yet. This is the kind of work that would rouse the bored heart of Kerouac. In it’s entirety, this poem is about being a poet. But underneath, it is about how one becomes a poet, which is what this contest is all about.”

There were so many poems to choose from, Amber chose additional poems as runner up winners!

Amber selected Zurigirl123‘s moving “We Need Counseling” and made these comments:

“I love this poem’s simple and direct title, like something you would read in a pamphlet at the doctor’s office, yet the body of the poem is a multi-meaning layered hell storm of relationship truths. The metaphor about the museum is stellar. Wait, let me put that in caps: STELLAR. And the last stanza is weird and strange and awesome and… And, and, and. Good poem all around.”

She also chose Quixoticfae‘s “kingdom” as a runner up!

“I enjoyed the random rhyming and great structure of this poem, which has a lot of painful youth to it. It reminds me of the poems I wrote in my first book, Free Stallion– poems about body image and the map to how we as women naturally self destruct. Even in it’s vulnerability, the strength of the writing and redemption (let’s call it booby redemption!) seeps through and shines.”

Read all of the poems from Amber Tamblyn, BUST and Buzznet’s Poetry Contest

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in our poetry contest. Congratulations to all of the winners and we hope that Chelsea enjoys her signed copy of Bang Ditto and having her poem published in Bust Magazine! All of the entries were incredible and we can’t wait to feature more poetry on Buzznet! Keep checking back for more contests!