Enter our 2010 Migraine and Headache Poetry Contest!

It's that time of year again, time for our 2010 Putting Our Heads Together Poetry Contest.

Whether you're an experienced poet or have never written a poem before, you're invited to submit up to three poems for our contest. One year, the person who write the poem that won first place had never written a poem before! All entries must be about Migraines or headaches and must be poetry, not prose.

The contest will be judged by the National Headache Foundation, and winners announced in April in observance of National Poetry Month.

I can't enter the contest, but I'll share a poem I wrote here, one of my favorites...

phantom tango

the beat is faint, the dance slow

     so slow I’m not sure we’re dancing

my partner is but a shadow

     waiting to become more than a phantom

the disco ball that so blithely

     cast shards of light upon my eyes

forecast my partner’s arrival

     yet I had dared hope he would not follow

but the beat strengthens

     and the dance intensifies

the steps we’ve danced before

     are too familiar and unmitigatedly unwelcome 

we turn and dip, this direction then that

     an intimate tango

with each dip, my stomach rebels

     the dips so deep my head ricochets off the floor

he shows no pity

     but dances the dance his sadistic way

and when I am beyond spent, he departs

     without so much as a bow at the end

Migraine is a merciless partner

     a relentless partner

a murderess I would gladly become

     if only I could slay him
 

If you'd like to read poetry from previous contests, you can find all the entries HERE.

For the rules and entry form for this year's contest, please CLICK HERE.

Good luck,

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© Teri Robert, 2010
Last updated February 17, 2010