Judging JELLO POEMS

How did that happen? Well I happen to be a member of the Utah State Poetry Society's Dixie Chapter. Was the President last year and I volunteered to help judge a Thanksgiving-Jello Haiku contest. Funny you say? Well not really Utah is the jello capital of the world. See my post about it. There was even an Olympic pin made for green jello when the Winter Olympics were in Utah. So we are famous for something else other than having lots of Mormons. Oh yeah and that Mitt Romney pulled our troubled Olympics out of the hole it was in financially, but wasn't able to get enough votes in the recent election to do that for AMERICA! So I have 353 high schooler's haiku poems to read and pick a winner, but I have also  have two other poets in the state helping me judge. Winners announced Monday is the Salt Lake Tribune!

Here's a poem I wrote about GREEN JELLO years ago. It won an award at the Redrock Writers Chaparral Poetry contest years ago. My claim to fame...lol!

GREEN JELLO

The mainstay of every Mormon mother’s

repertoire of salads or desserts:

J-E-L-L-O!

It must be green and filled with other tidbits:

nutritious veggies or delicious fruits

shredded carrots or grated apples, slices of banana

maybe some whipped cream

as well as cottage cheese and nuts.

No family meal is complete without it,

reminding one that life must have order.

Chaos ensues in a family when a teenage son

is finally bold enough to say out loud,

I don’t like your green jello salad.

His good mother can ignore the outburst

or pursue the arguments of

how nutritious and delicious it is,

how it adds variety to the family meal

until she is blue in the face.

Or there is the coward’s way out:

avoid conflict at all costs,

hide the tears of rejection,

stop making the dish, and try to forget

being the perfect Mormon mother.

I chose the latter, until years later

becoming an empty nest parent,

I suddenly realized...

I do like green jello salad

and I have missed it at suppertime.