Form Poem Contest

This Form Poetry contest is over. I will have the results in a few days. Congratulations to all the fine entries and thanks for participating.

All of these triolets were true to the form, which is not always as easy a task as it might seem. Congratulations to all those who submitted triolets. Now for the hard part.

Pen, what I liked first about this was the use of rain in this repetitive form. As with so many of your poems you bring us face to face with the common struggle to live with faith and hope in a world that is unpredictably wonderful and cruel. My favorite lines also are “With sorrow for breakfast, and supper depression/Never knowing when trouble comes or from which direction.”

Prince, for me the best lines were “Where once with the birds we larked./As in a solitary sleeper’s dream…” This indirect association between the cherished then and lonely now was done very well by putting these lines one following the other even though they are parts of separate thoughts. Well done!

Alakungfu, the poignancy of this simple question coupled with its persistent echo whipsawed me! My favorite line, “Your promise is scattered, your playground is vast;” I think it is difficult to write about the solitude of shyness without getting mired in pathos. This did not at all.

Autolycus, I liked the description “curious tune.” Employing ravens to sing it was brilliant. There seemed a sad sarcasm or maybe despondency to this in the line “That said one more time what they had to say…” This short triolet said so much to me that it seemed longer than it is. I got to this point and again was floored by what was being said between these powerful lines, coupled with the one above. “That one has a duty to look for a way/That does not end in a multitude slain…”

AuntShecky, this struck to my core because I have been without my garden for nearly 10 years. Your triolet dug up all those key reasons for missing a garden. I know you say that the speaker is just the speaker in a poem, but I couldn’t help thinking this was personal. I liked the length and urgency of this perfect line, “right now, with spring’s prime past due kiss.” I also felt the remorse in “birds who fled from a landlord’s hiss,/amid my overgrowing lack.”

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I hope it is obvious that I truly loved and appreciated every one of these. I feel so lucky many times to have found the poets and writers of Literature Network.

Being a child of the ‘60’s I often remark as to why there are not in this decade more poems and particularly popular songs admonishing war. To me it is so important that we speak well, speak often, and speak relentlessly to the point that peace seldom if ever comes from war. Autolycus expressed this concisely, artistically and very true to the form imposed. Autolycus, congratulations on winning the form poetry contest.

firefangled, thank you very much for the honour! As another child of the 60s, now teaching children of the 90s(!), I've realised that sometimes it's difficult for them to see how we used to live and may yet descend towards.

Note: The ravens come from my completed experiment at http://tworavens.blogspot.com, where they say more things, and some most peculiar.

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The next form is something that I think I've seen before somewhere around here... it's the terza rima haiku, that odd blend of Renaissance Italian and Japanese traditions.

Here are the rules:

1. Terza rima is a form which Dante Alighieri used in his Divine Comedy. It consists of lines whose rhyme-endings follow the scheme a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d and so on. Conventionally it either terminates with a single line (so the ending here would be d-e-d e) or a couplet (so the ending here would be d-e-d e-e).

2. A haiku (well, the modern type) is a form which has more or less three phrases with a syllable count of 5-7-5 and does not have a particular rhyme scheme. In some traditions, the haiku has a seasonal theme (or a theme from nature), with two contrasting images.

3. The terza rima haiku is a hybrid. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to compose a poem of fourteen lines with the following structure:

3a. The rhyme scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ee.
3b. The syllable count is 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 5-7-5, 7-7 (note this last detail).
3c. The theme must be taken from the natural environment (although 'winter in a city' would just about qualify, for 'winter' and not for the 'city').

4. While terza rima is conventionally written in iambic pentameter (if in English) and haiku are generally without such constraints, you are free to follow the latter tradition or invent other constraints of form.

5. Deadline is Saturday 6 Jun 2009, 8 pm EST (GMT -4).

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Enjoy yourselves! Thank you so much for being a great community!

Lithe as the summer
Turning on a flippant dime's
Flight into slumber.

Rainbows haunt the climes:
Grainy background sheaf of dreams;
All-absorbing times.

Gold unicorn streams
Pepper glum quivering Snoop
With magic's raucous beams.

Letters on a stoop
Call attention to a love,
Delivered life's dupe

Sends the fragile turtledove,
Glimmered struggling above.

Whoa... fast and sweet, with some scintillating lines! :)

Urgh. One entry only, but it's a good one.

I award this win to alakungfu, but I have to say that although it's the only entry, it's well worthy of a prize on its own. So not a 'default' win, but a recognition that it's (yes, again) a good one. :)

PS: In the old days, I'd have innocently tried to extend the deadline. But just as with the Picture Poetry Contest, if there's only one entry, the choice is probably to award or not to award — not extend or not to extend. Best that way, I guess.

Thank you, autolycus.. I enjoyed writing this poem. As a matter of fact, I had planned on choosing the terza rima sonnet as my form. However, as it happens, and as I was just recently introduced to the tanka (my time was occupied instead with haiku), that's tha form I'll choose. You probably recognize the format -- 5-7-5-7-7. Write about whatever you like. Here's my example that I wrote myself:

wooden slivers drip
from the rafters borne aloft
in Thumbelinaland
a dimpled island of tunnels
in times seldom visited

I'm sure everyone else can do much better since this was my first try on the forum's "Japanese Tanka Game".

The contest deadline is June 30, 10 am..

Congratultions, alakungfu. It's a lovely poem. I especially like "Golden unicorn streams..."I thought of giving it a try, but the end of school is an incredibly busy time-AND I was intimidated. Still, I might give the terza rima a try this summer.

alakungfu, your way with words is something that I will ever be striving for. I'll give the tanka a try!

The slaves revolted—
Desperate men sought freedom:
The Romans struck fast—
Crucifixion sentences pass—
Crosses line The Apian Way...

Pendragon

Took me a few days,
but now I've worked it all out.
The thing I wanted -
the best thing that could happen -
I let go - it went away.

It all added up -
I explained it so clearly -
She had to concur.
It made such sense. What else could
she do but agree. And go.

Talk about diversity -- This contest will be interesting. Keep the poems coming.

the water glimmers
and willow kisses its' waves
such infinite love
the willow loves the water
so will I love you, always

Lovely, quimissung. I wish I had a book of just willow poems.

Thank You, alakungfu. Willows are just naturally poetic, aren't they?

White as the walls, my
mind stilled to beating silence -
outside, the city:
fast-dancing, rapturous night -
a closed door. Sleep: not dreaming.