the haunting feeling is more predominant than fear as one reads through...that's my perception...but haunting is also a level of fear so i think this write should qualify for the contest....

Your poem raises the hackles on my neck and I shiver:

Glowing eyes from every tree
Voices whisper
They're following me

As I trod histories ground
There is no shelter
To be found

Great imagery!

always, Cat

This to me is a great start to a story as I am reading it that came over to me. Perhaps a fiction or it could be a non-fiction story. Hmm Chrys what do you think.. It leaves the reader with wanting to know more of what happen perhaps the shriek in the woods.

I like it

Hugs
Mona

... I will limit my comment to pointing out a boo boo. I think "history's" needs to be possessive. Wish I had known about this workshop, but such is poetry. wesley

The end of the first line could be BLAST to avoid two casts?
Footfalls in the dark would have a rhyme, but footfalls in my wake would too.
What about voices whisper 'follow me.' As you have already said something was behind you.
"As I trod histories ground
There is no shelter".....two tenses here I TROD- THERE IS. in some parts I was not sure when it was.
Not sure what history had to do with it exactly. Perhaps that thought could be elucidated a little more as its a relevant one as those woods are probably historic, interesting, I have never been there.

"In answer to my prayers
I hear a shriek"
To answer my prayers
A sudden shriek?

I too liked the fear in this poem and see that is all I should have addressed, but here were some thoughts about the poem anyway, for what they're worth!

This could be great stuff with a little work on it, and as others say it begs more.

Love to you, brr!!! from Ann in the forests of Norway.
(Its cold damp and dark here now!)

Perhaps a bit of succinct tidying-up?

Elongated shadows cast
An ice cold chill
upon me is cast

(lose the line "upon me is cast", it serves no purpose. The first two lines are enough of a foreshadowing, so to speak)

Night birds cry
Foot Falls in the distance

(while capitalize Foot and Fall?)

Making the earth

(lose making)

Tremble and quake

Glowing eyes from every tree
Voices whisper
They're following me

(colon after whisper and quote the last line)

As I trod histories ground
There is no shelter
To be found

(I trod history's ground,
here, no shelter is
to be found.)

From these haunted woods
Sanctuary I seek
In answer to my prayers
I hear a shriek

(in answer to my prayers
I hear my sudden shriek)

The last line needs a two-syllable word
and changing it to my, brings it all *home*, so to speak)

Use or discard.

~A