Cue the confetti. The crown goes to:

PASSION IS SPRING - HOWARD OSBORNE

Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel.

Beat the drums. The first runner-up is:

APRIL, AND YOU - HOLLY KEEHN

Holly Keehn is a teacher and writer from Gig Harbor, Washington. Her work reflects the intersections of motherhood, memory, and the natural world. When she isn’t teaching second graders, she can be found writing poetry or exploring the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Say, hurrah! The second runner-up is:

APRIL MOON - MARSHA SOLOMON

Marsha Solomon has been living and working as a poet and a painter in New York. Her work has received extensive critical attention and has been written about in international, national, regional and local publications like Long Island Pulse Magazine, The Guardian UK, Chelsea News, Art Week, The Suffolk News, Art Slant, and the Daily Record.

Eureka! And here are our top finalists:

PERFORMATIVE LOVE - REEBIE ANN FLOWERS

Email: Focused259@gmail.com Instagram: viewerzchoice35 Spotify: The Poetic Plug Books: Progress Over Perfection 2023, Manifested as I Waited 2024, #Laced 2024, Queenish 2026. A Dozen featured Publications with Wingless Dreamer Publisher. Also, can find me in many Online Literary works such as A Freed Butterfly, which is featured with The Perch in The Social Volume 8, 2026. Diamond’s That Can’t be Tested has been selected with the Red Rose Throne Volume 26, 2026.

AN ODE TO THE CROOKED PORTRAIT - DENISE TORRES

Denise is an aspiring writer hoping to share her works with the world. Her Instagram is @rspb3rryy

WHEN YOU ARE AWAY - JENNIFER WEIGEL

Multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist Jennifer Weigel lives in Kansas, USA. Weigel is an avid art collector and enjoys playing board and role-playing games, junk store thrifting, and mail art. Her kindred animal is the deer though if she were a dog she’d be a beagle. Weigel’s favorite foods are unagi don or broiled calamari steak and frosting with or without cake. Weigel was previously a staff writer for Haunted MTL and is now involved with Weird Wyrlds. She serves on the Board of Nat 1 Publishing. Author of Witch Hayzelle’s Recipes for Disaster trilogy and a myriad of short stories, poems, art discourse, and more drifting around the Interwebs. Learn more on her website here. https://jenniferweigelart.com/

THE PIGEONS - CLAIRE BRESLOW

Claire Breslow is a young writer from New York. She has been published in Chautauqua Literary Magazine and LEON Literary Review. Her story is still being written.

LOVE, SWEATING, SKIN - ADNAN ADNAN

Adnan Adnan won the Ruth MacLean McGee Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Nonfiction in 2013. In 2018, he won the Chalk Hill Artist’s Residency grant for his memoir, The Sentimental Pigeon Keeper. Inspired by Jon Fosse’s works, he penned 108 plays in 2024. Adnan’s works have appeared in the Five Minutes, Poetry Habitat, Flash Fiction World, Wingless Dreamer, Mukto-Mona, Reed Magazine, Shipwreckt Books, TWO@SJSU, Pinyon Review, and The Rumpus. He is currently finalizing his memoirs, The Sentimental Pigeon Keeper and Do Not Die Out There. He lives in San Jose, California, with his wife, Farzana, and daughters, Rain and Arabella.

THE UNLATCHING - ASHOK JAHAGIRDAR

Ashok Jahagirdar is a poet who believes silence is not empty but full of unhatched metaphors. He writes in the margins of train schedules and on the backs of receipts, finding poetry wherever something refuses to stay neatly folded. His work has appeared nowhere official -- and everywhere necessary: on a coffee shop napkin, a birthday card, a whispered line shared between strangers at a bus stop. He lives on with a stubborn belief that the best poem is the one you almost didn't write.

I’M CHOOSING SYNTHETIC GOTHIC PAINTS FOR MY EASTER EGGS - LINA BUIVIDAVIČIŪTĖ

Lina Buividavičiūtė was born on May 14, 1986. She is a poet and literary critic. Lina is an author of three poetry books in Lithuanian language. Her poetry is published in "Matter", "Masters", “Proverse poetry prize" contest anthologies, "Drunk monkeys", "Beyond words", "The Dewdrop", "The limit experience", "Poets choice", "HOW", "Beyond queer words", "Maudlin House", "Cathexis northwest press", "Poetry online" magazines and "Versopolis" poetry platform. Upcoming publications will appear in “New millennium writings”, "Cathexis northwest press", "Quillkeepers Press", "The Stardust review" and “Beyond words” magazine.

Thuds of applause for our selected contributors. Congrats!

BECOMING WHOLE WITH A HEART AND A SOUL - ALEX ANDY PHUONG

FRIEND - TERRY BRINKMAN

FOUR MINUTES - ANDY BETZ

MEMORY - LARA DOLPHIN

MY LAST WISH - LEOTIS HARGROVE

LA SONATA - AVELANDA

AND THAT’S THE THING… - RACHEL ECK

KANGAROO - MEGHAN KATHLEEN

THE GIRL WHO NEVER KNEW - JAYANTH KOLLI

KAAPU AND THE BANALITY OF EVIL - ANA FORTUNA

THE INCENSE STICKS, THEY FELL IN LOVE - RYAN RAHMAN

REFLECTIONS OF JOY - CARLY POPENKO

LONGING TO ONE DAY HOLD YOU - THOMAS KORON

I WROTE MYSELF A LOVE - APRIL BELL

I WANTED TO WRITE YOU A LOVE LETTER… - JOHN M. DAVIS

PHOTO BOOTH - JAXSON GALLO

DEAR JOHN - ANDREW S. ELLIS

BENEATH HER HANDS - TESSARA DUDELY

PERPETUAL - ARDA ÜNAL

HUMAN DRAMA - GAVIN BOURKE

WHERE ARE YOU - GYPSIE-AMI OFFENBACHER-FERRIS

VISITING MOLLY MALONE ON SUFFOLK STREET - REBEKAH CHAPPELL

Congratulations to all the winners on behalf of the Wingless Dreamer team. Keep up the good work. Keep writing.