"Through the Looking Glass" International Juried Photo Exhibition 2008

First Place

"Sophie" by Andrea Land of San Francisco, CA

Second Place

"Lily Pond" by Starlight Tews of Verona, WI

Third Place

"Steso il Bucato" by Kimberly Matlon of Evanston, IL

4 Honorable Mention Awards

"Hush" by Elle Moss of Saline, MI

"Canyon Autumn Reflection VI" by Marv Poulson of Salt Lake City, UT

"Elizabeth" by Andrea Land of San Francisco, CA

"Angelina" by Andrea Land of San Francisco, CA

Student Awards

First Place

"Forget This Ever Happened" by Cassie Staub of Erie, PA

Second Place

"Earth's Angel" by Lori Breeze of Evansville, IN

Third Place

"The Rescue" by  Luke Burke of Lake Zurich, IL

The Look of Love 2007 Visual Award Winners

First Place

"Love & Wisdom" by Perry Slade

Second Place

"Hot Town Summer in the City" by Sarah Ettinger

Third Place

"Sugar Bakers" by Cindy Brabec King, Grand Junction, CO

Fourth Place

"God, do you know my feeling Now" by Dashuai Sun, Elmhurst, NY

4 Honorable Mention Awards

"The Ties That Bind" by Linda Seckinger, Starkville, MS

"War Widow" by Anthony Santella

"Loves Me, Loves Me Not" by Oksana Lysyuk

"Untitled" by Steve Lautermilch, Kill Devil Hills, NC

The Look of Love ... 2007 Poetry Award Winners

First Place

Escaping to Cuba
     Shah'e Mankerian, North Hollywood, CA

You tell me about the streets
overflowing with balconies,
and T-shirts of Ché hanging on telephone wires.
You want to sell me Cuba.
You tell me about the hotel
the color of banana peeling itself,
the paint disappearing slowly
like the extended days of the revolution.
No need to convince me.
I would sell my Honda
and buy a ticket on a single engine cargo plane;
I would sell the Buddha
I found at a garage sale.
I will follow you even if you're Castro,
even if you kiss me like a Marxist
kissing Lenin's feet,
even if you pull me away from my mother's glance.
All so that I can be
on that terrace
playing the typewriter like Hemingway,
and watching you blowing
smoke against the sunrise of Havana.
And when the fisherman below
see you dancing like Erato,
they will curse their wives and me
for having you all to myself
for one day
in that room
at sunrise.

SECOND PLACE

I Want To Take You Below
     by Ron Deverman, Park Ridge, IL

I want to take you below granite and
loam, below the roots of oak and willow,
until our palms hold the beginnings
of rivers, our eyes are lumps of coal.
I want to take you deep enough to feel
the pull of the earth strengthen,
until we wear arrowheads and flint tools
like a string of beads, use animal bones
as walking sticks. I want to take you down to
where crustaceans once drank the milk of
glaciers, where the seeds of man are still lodged
in the slant of a Tyrannosaurus's belly,
until I can no longer remember you in the clothes
you are wearing now, or you standing naked and alone.
I want to reach across this space that separates
us, bring you so close that we can barely discern
the width of one of us, until on your forehead
appears the soft imprint of a hand, just
like the shape of my hand.

THIRD PLACE

Hanging the Picture
     by Amy MacLennan, San Carlos, CA

We need to hang it plumb-
as if a weight dangling
from the center of the frame
would plunge straight through,
you say, a clean line
to the Earth's core. The level helps,
yes, but the eye knows best,
sees vertical even when
walls and ceiling meet at a tilt,
when there's no absolute
on land that shifts and splits.
The walls are skewed,
I see it now and ask you
to swing the left corner up-
the next try of the level
moves the bubble out of center,
but no matter. I look at the picture
and know that it's trued.

FOURTH PLACE

Eve
     by Mary Legato Brownell

Massacio did give her such sorrow,
She settled his best work, the curve of her
Mouth's pain frescoed into the wet plaster.
And her hands, too, he shamed, and hid one low
To her side. And of marble's white weight, so
Convinced of her will, Rodin cut a scar
To her skin's stone rib, and Uccello's fear
Of the known and unknown carved its way to
her bone's reach. Until by candlelight, and

Drawn inside by her longing, and his thoughts
sure, dying Milton saw to her standing
At the gate of the garden, hand in hand,
And said, Stay, daring then in blind couplets
To write she hadn't done anything wrong.

Honorable Mentions:

Lake County by Connie Vaughn, Grayslake, IL
The Man in the Moon by Rebecca Schenck, Charlotte, NC
In Ka'anapali by Judith Valente, Normal, IL
Fable #3 by Ben Hennesy, Philadelphia, PA