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Tucker, a professor in the English and Humanities department at ���ϴ��¼� State College, said neither poem is biographical.

“Poetry, for me, doesn’t have to be about truth with a capital T, rather it is evocative of smaller truths,” Tucker said. “It’s an attempt to create a small clearing in the world.”

Tucker said he doesn’t consider himself a poet; just a dabbler who enjoys poetry as a creative outlet. In 1995, he won a poetry prize as a graduate student.

“I submit all the time and have received many rejections. They don’t bother me because I realize thousands of others are also writing and submitting,” he said.

Tucker, who has been published in the “Cider Press Review,” “Ice” magazine and “Tenth Street Miscellany” among others, said it is an honor to be nominated by a juried journal.

Fellow English and Humanities faculty member Dr. Steve Coughlin, who specializes in creative writing, said the internet has become a wonderful resource for writers over the last 15 years.

“We are proud of Deane’s accomplishments and glad he is being recognized as part of the great work that’s happening online,” Coughlin said.

 

Storm

by Thomas Tucker

 

By the time I reached the cellar

the storm had passed

sirens drifting east.

 

The corrugated door, red paint

crackled like gold leaf

on a Bronze age urn,

was still there, half-hinged.

 

Anyway, it was still locked

since last winter.

 

Our house looked dazed.

Pea sized drops of hail

drained through the gutter

spouts like frozen tears, rattling

as they rolled out.

 

The sun quit its reticence

and sputtered, shattering

a poplar into shards

of purple shadow flung

against the house.

 

The window panes

abruptly lit and you too

lit up in one.

 

By then the sky seemed

marooned

in a sea of yellow

and the house no

longer quivered.