We're thrilled to announce that Todd Larkin Tremble has been selected as the 2024 winner of the David Hamilton Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize for his poem "Woody." This prize is sponsored by anonymous donors who wish to honor the mentorship and support that students at the University of Iowa received from Emeritus Professor of English David Hamilton. In addition to publication online, the award comes with a $500 scholarship.
My name was Woody,
my favorite dinosaur was the triceratops,
and my dad was going to live forever.
My name was Woopie
as was evidenced by the artifact of the terrible kindergarten handwriting
that was proudly displayed on the wall of the post-and-beam farmhouse
that the bank took away after Dad’s third bankruptcy.
Where he would cook us bacon on the woodstove in the morning.
Where he would turn himself into a Smirnoff furnace every single night.
Memories burn gently like oak.
My name was Woody because my sister told everybody
that my parents found me in the woods.
My single mom, the waitress, would tell the skiers from the city
with a completely straight face:
“It’s short for Forrest.”
My name became Todd, the same as my father,
when Mom married Joe and we moved to New Jersey.
A new name for a fresh start. But it wasn’t a new name.
I think she hated half of my face and my name
became another four-letter curse word.
And she almost never cursed.
Anthony F███ welcomed me to the Italian town
by punching my cross into my chest; that was the last time I wore one.
A few years later Joe strangled me while my mother watched.
A few years after that, I thought it was hysterical to have AME Zion on my dog tags
My mother didn’t stop me from moving back upstate with my dad,
who let a thirty-year-old ██ my barely teenage sister because he
worked for a price that only my father could consider cheap.
My bad side: Who got me a six pack of Smirnoff Ice for my 13th birthday.
Whose presence makes Brigette so sick she couldn’t—didn’t
even show up to contest my custody with a monster.
At least the patriarch never hit us: some sign of brand loyalty before I went off to become
something that he never could. Oh, what we will do for a change in name and title.
Sick of beings Todd’s son, I volunteered for adoption at the teenage orphanage;
Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children always need more desperate, athletic runaways.
“Todd” got reduced to “this recruit” then spent
the next six years becoming much older than twenty-three.
When Sergeant T███ honorably discharged from the Marines
I became Todd again.
But this time around I accept that I have always carried Woody,
that I carry my father’s name and these days, much more.
My father is sick. But he’s always been.
Taking care of him for two years more
than he ever did me, flipped our ages
His life-extending drug, unlike the extension of his life, is aptly named: Xtandi.
Mine has always been called Leaving
i am Woody again, scared
of the boogeyman that Dad fed instead of me
except for some sober times
like when I had the gran mal seizure,
he held me, his arms were strong then.
His radial bones are visible now.
What happens when the monsters are under his bed?
Metastasizing in his bones.
Well, he put them there.
I no longer think about dinosaurs—
just extinction events and those damn bones
whose chemicals I inherited
A man with most of my name is not going to live forever.
I am a version of Todd
of whom a good father would be proud
I showed him my sergeant’s strength
when I left him to die alone for what he did
When I came home to a place that I had never been to.
But alone, a kind boy named Woody cried again last night
while another man named Todd had no idea
how to comfort the child
Todd Larkin Tremble is a substitute teacher and senior at the University of Iowa, majoring in English and Creative Writing. He holds a BBA in Management from Pace University and more importantly, the 2024 championship trophy from the Block Island four-team-co-ed-summer-slow-pitch softball league. During breaks he returns to his adoptive community of Block Island, Rhode Island to build stone walls and perform other delights of hard physical labor. His poems have appeared in deskside garbage cans across the world, and emails to friends.
