Meet the 2022 Hal Prize Poetry Winner

Annette Langlois Grunseth

Are you looking for a holiday gift for that book lover in your life? Then pick up a copy of 8142 Review, Vol. 2 from the Door County Pulse shop. The Peninsula Pulse’s literary magazine contains the 37 best pieces of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and photography out of the 686 submissions received for the 2022 Hal Prize.

Annette Langlois Grunseth of Green Bay earned first place in the poetry category for her poem “Cicadas Can Reach 100 Decibels.” Langlois Grunseth is a familiar name in the area, courtesy of her participation in local poetry-reading events and as a member of the Door County Poets Collective.

Here’s her winning poem.

Cicadas Can Reach 100 Decibels
by Annette Langlois Grunseth

In August crickets and grasshoppers
warn the end is near
rubbing legs and wings together.
Whirring rasp, insistent chirps
remind us how far we’ve traveled
in this season of sun, deep red tomatoes,
and tasseled corn.
Then, cicadas punctuate the afternoon,
a piercing buzz of late summer.

And so it was the year
my mother was hanging on
in her last season, too weak to talk.
I asked if she wanted to go
outside in her hospital bed, 
she nodded yes.
I wheeled her into the hospice garden.
Together, we listened –  
crickets click-clicking, grasshoppers whirring,
cicadas with their arrow of sound
voicing what’s ahead
reminding us of the journey.

Want to read more? Want to please a literature lover in your life? Visit doorcountypulse.com/shop to purchase the first and second volumes of 8142 Review. By purchasing the books, you support literature in the community, the continuation of the Hal Prize and future issues of 8142 Review.