FPS: Harvest of Memory Challenge Winners

It's that time again, welcome back to the Fall Poetry Series!

What do we carry, and what carries us?

The Harvest of Memory challenge invited poets to gather what they couldn’t bear to lose, a moment, a person, a feeling, and hold it in language. The submissions were full of quiet power: some aching, some joyful, many both at once.

These are the 30 that stayed with us.

🏆 Winners

Ink Black Psalms by Novel Allen

Novel Allen threads memory and identity through language that carries the weight of ancestry. Ink Black Psalms doesn’t just speak... it echoes. Blackness here feels like presence, like hymn, like something alive and unshakable.

When the Days Drift by Tim Carmichael

Tim Carmichael's poem builds its strength through rhythm and ritual, using repetition to guard what matters. Each “I gather...” deepens the sense of urgency and care. It’s a piece about presence and how we hold on when everything else wants to slip away.

Fruit for the Wintering by Sara Little

In Fruit for the Wintering, Sara Little captures the ache of holding on. The poem moves fast but lands with weight, its crisp, intimate details clinging to memory like fruit tucked away for harder seasons.

My Name Is Legion by Hannah Moore

There’s a steadiness in how Hannah Moore moves through memory, letting each line uncover a bit more strength. The repetition gives it momentum, and the ending holds a reminder of how resilience often reveals itself slowly, and with heart.

Echoes on the Breeze by Paul Stewart

Paul's poem doesn’t shy from what’s unresolved. Its strength is in its openness; a voice willing to look at what’s missing and still find something to carry forward. The honesty here cuts through and stays with you.

🎖️ Runners-up

• Tally by Guia Nocon
• Fieldborn by Simone Rocca
• Soul Sucking by Silver Daux
• In the Eye of the Storm by Pixel Floyd
• Summer's End by Rachel Deeming
• Factory Film by Sandy Gillman
• The Empress's New Gown by Paris Rosemont
• Three Pictures of Us by Raistlin Allen
• Harvested Moments with Granny by Cristal S.
• The Edge of Eden by Edward Swafford
• revealing memory by kp
• Sown with Stardust by C. Rommial Butler
• The Passing by Sonia Heidi Unruh
• The Path Back to Pebble Beach by sleepy drafts
• The Weft Remembers by Autumn Stew

🏅 Honorable Mentions

• A Blackberry Memory by John R. Godwin
• The Corrupt Gardener by Vitaline
• An ode to our dumpsters by Sam Spinelli
• Bouquet by Jessica Dowding
• Poisoned Grains by Emma Weir
• Unhurried by Martina Franklin Poole
• The Early Years Collection by Steven Christopher McKnight
• Mending by Pōlani Monderen
• Harvest At The Table by Candy Kemunto
• White Rosebuds by Meredith Harmon

Check out the latest on Vocal Challenges.