Announcing form poetry winner!
Let me see here:
Riesa: your first stanza seems to remind me of longing for love, the second the question of if the love could survive them being apart. That hinges on the one line
Quote:
“separate we are, alone, divided” and its reversal “Divided, alone, are we separate?”.
All said, an excellent poem, and a good grasp of the admittedly unusual form!
Adolescent09: I loved your title, and you grasped the form very well. My favorite line was this:
Quote:
“please those who needn't be pleased” and the reverse “please be needn't, those who are pleased”.
The first stanza has one out to please the world, the second realizes that one cannot. Excellent!
Il Penseroso: You played with the form before coming up with an excellent poem. Music certainly seems mathematical, and indeed is based on mathematics. Division of a string by a finger against a fret board plays a guitar. I really think I like this line and its reverse best
Quote:
“scratching pullovers” “Pullovers scratching”,
as they represent all I think has gone wrong with music. Really, both stanza’s seem to lament the decline of music, but in different ways.
Kandaurov: The poem is very strong and grasps the form with precision. The first stanza is one’s past strength; the second, one’s present weakness. My favorite line is your first, the last in the second stanza:
Quote:
“Courage. I had courage” “Courage, had I courage...!
Lovely!
Niamh: Interesting poem. You found a strength others had missed your poem—combining lines on the reversals to form new meanings. A little punctuation makes a world of difference: example: first stanza:
Quote:
“Quiet everything goes bye
good say I, no more time”
Now second stanza:
“time, no more I say good
bye...goes everything quiet”
Quite a different meaning by rearranging the words with punctuation, don’t you think?
Petra: I see you used my nickname for you when you entered. Thank you. Small things matter more that anyone knows. You took a real chance and pulled it off. Long lines in the poem that must reverse perfectly. And they do. First stanza offers sadness, the second a breath of hope, that things are not as bad as they seem. Favorite line has to be:
Quote:
“Again paradise lost. Open gates closed. Once possible, it is now” “Now is it possible? Once closed gates open lost paradise again.”
Orionsbelt: Pizza. Thinking with your stomach, yes? It was a good poem but was shaky on form. And the trouble is, reversed or not reversed, the same imagery of an Italian Chef skillfully manipulating the bread for a pizza is still there. Also you have a problem here:
Quote:
“brown around red, swims spread
thin green or white stripe “ from the fist stanza.
“stripe white or green,
thin spread swims red, around brown flat” from the second stanza.
You moved a word to another line. That isn’t allowed. Sorry.
Virgil:
I must say I enjoyed your poem, and the reversal certainly manages to give a new meaning to several words! Take this line for example:
Quote:
“Steeling his consanguineous neighbor”” Neighbor consanguineous his steeling”.
In the first stanza, the knight could have been “steeling” (running a lance through) his consanguineous (bloody) neighbor. But in the second stanza, perhaps “steeling” should be spelled with an “a”, thus: “Stealing”. “Consanguineous” means “of the blood, or of one’s blood” as well, meaning now he has stolen someone’s daughter, wife, concubine, etc. and consummated the deed. Good show!
First, may I thank each of you for entering the contest. I tossed out a very hard form, and you went to bat like the pros that you are. I would dearly love to call this a five-way tie, since five of you wrote excellent winners in my book: ‘Dole, Kandy, Niamh. Petra, and Virgil.
Yet I can only choose one. Niamh, congratulations Best use of punctuation to change meaning in a reversible! You are a winner, and may choose the next form.. http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...s/Appaluse.gif