Amidst all of the wonderful submissions we received, including our Honorable Mention, I am so pleased to announce that the winner of Lit Shark Magazine’s October Poem of the Month contest is Lauren K. Nixon, who writes incredible, visceral, emotional, and sometimes spooky poetry.

Her winning poem, “One Eccentric Owner,” offers an amazing duality between imagining that strange person who lives alone in a house and everyone in town has heard spooky stories about them, and the memories and energies people often talk about feeling attached to an abandoned house. This is one of those poems that is such a great example of the interpretation of the poem depending on the person reading it. I can read the poem and think of the eerieness of a long-abandoned house and all of its creaks, groans, and settling sounds, but I can also read a lot more into it and imagine feeling into the space and the lingering memories and vibes of who used to live there. I love poems like this that can be visited in different ways at different times. I’m so glad it found a home at Lit Shark Magazine.

For each contest, the winner will receive a unique digital broadside of their winning poem, and the one I created can be found below. When I read this poem, I loved reading it, both, as an abandoned space that has that strange, long-neglected, long-alone feeling, but I also love the haunted vibes that it gave off of memories attached to the space or even the space being alive of its own accord (you know, spooky vibes!). I especially loved the final two stanzas, which really leaned into the aging and possible alive-ness of the space, and I wanted to emulate that in some way through a space that is being taken over by something that is alive – like vines. I loved this particularly visceral green, and that shade really spoke to how Lauren’s poetry always makes me feel. I hope you enjoy seeing it as much as I enjoyed creating it.