A New Kind of Winter

Judging Comment:

What I have always admired about Noura, is her ability to capture her deepest sorrow and paint it with elegance within her poetry. In detail she allows the reader to gather in her reality, vision the devistation that is taking place and at the end wanting to embrace her every word.

This poem left me speechless. She has detailed words that I feel are markers for certain time frame events, just as April and August. Losing a loved one, in a war torn environment
is the vision that is so eloquently orchestrated in this piece.

Each stanza depicts the authors feelings to a tee, what she sees and to write this; talking to her father just breaks my heart.

Beautiful and captivating poem by this dear lady, I can't express anymore than that, brilliant piece of poetry!

[Judging comment from week of 4/29/13]:

The emotion in this poem is so raw and absolutely tears my insides when I am reading... I too cannot imagine the violence in Syria now, or the wars and rebellions going on. I just hear about it on the news. But this is your homeland. You're seeing this. My heart aches at these lines and I like how you put your heart out there, almost trying to reassure that this country is the peaceful country it used to be:

"I try to unfold my love for this city,
to stretch my love along its alleys,
to hang my love, a lamp in its dark streets,
a patrol man comes hurrying to seize
me and my love and parade us
in the national museum."

The ending gave me chills, especially when you write with such rawness toward your father, missing and calling back those days where you had time. There was such a grey atmosphere too here, and I liked I could almost feel the rain falling down when you mentioned it throughout the poem. What a sorrowful poem and I can only pray the killings end and there is no "enemy".

Judge comment:

Written in spring, where my area just got their summer start, I was intrigued by the title.. and then I delved into a poem of anguish, heartbreak and desperation. I can't help but just ache when I read this poem.. knowing that the pain is so real and so fresh like a brand new wound. I truly hope writing does help in even the slightest way possible. The pictures written here are hard to read, so I can't imagine witnessing them face to face every day. In the hurt and destruction Noura has written a brilliant poem, I just hate that such awful things had to happen to give this such inspiration here.

Congratulations, Superlative Write Noura!!!

Wow