Form Poem Contest

[AuntShecky]

It astonishes me, Windblown, and several of you others, that you submitted poems as graceful and free-flowing as if they had been written without ANY rules rather than with this barbed-wire necklace over your shoulders and around your arms! Although I shudder from the thought of trying one my (obsessive) self, I see in these the truth that adversity sometimes makes for grace.

I'm willing to bet, Prince, that if you tried one, you'd surprise yourself, but not necessarily us, because we've seen what you can do with verse. Your sestina might be the best entry of all. "You never know"-- to quote the State Lottery, who also gave us the immortal slogan -- "You gotta get in it to win it."

[Pendragon]

I chose the Sestina for this contest because it is hard to write one well. The poets have answered the challange with wonderful verses. Try it Jer. I am always a fair judge in these contests.

[Pendragon]

Contest now closed. Now comes the fun part, trying to judge these wonderful poems.

[Pendragon]

Firefangled:

I love these lines from your sestina:

Time to harvest all the soldiers’ spirits from the ground,
let their last appetence be the force that forward walks
and flows at last in every generation as one blood.
May there be no escape from peace, the world’s a shell
around us all, one creature, in someone’s pail, someone’s books.
There is no killing one, where all of us aren’t dead.

You missed one word in your closing envoi, which I am going to allow as an honest mistake!’

Alakungfu:

These were great lines from your sestina:

No concept of the richly feminine
Inasmuch as rivets the male arena,
Leaving stars awash to embark and follow
Insight to such dried Experience as can man
Be imminent as destroyer of the sexes both.
Youth joins in with outstretched hand in dreamland:

You unfortunately missed the entire point of the envoi, which was the six words, two to a line!

Auntie:

I love these lines from your sestina:

Me, I'm outside the margin: “No income, no job, no assets.”
What doesn't bring home bucks and bacon isn't work.
On paper, little value accrues by my own hand.
Sewing and cleaning, cooking and washing make up the world
from which I crave escape, but too confined to move.
It could be a virtual prison, as if I'm doing time.

Your envoi is both right and wonderful!

qimisung:

I love these lines from your sestina:

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And your envoi is to die for!

Windblown:

You were very creative in your use of end words such as here:

Your Monday, Tuesday, Wednes- and Thurs- and Friday
Fill weeks and months and years in endless circles.
Your life a quilt - can you detect the pattern?
There, in that patch the girl-child cries again
And that old rag of habit: nothing new
You walk through life and find the same old hurdles.

Well done! But you also messed up on the envoi, the six words, two words to a line, remember this!


All said and done, the contest goes to qimisung who may choose the next form. Thanks to all of you wonderful poets!

[firefangled]

Congratulations!

Well deserved qimissung! Your sestina was masterful and poignant. I have read it several times since it appeared. So many of the lines are like nothing I have ever read for their originality and what they lend to the poem.

You have come through the labyrinthine task of writing in this form gloriously.

Personally, I have sworn off sestinas forever because they drive me to drink.

[qimissung]

Thank you, Pendragon. I am touched and honored. Firefangled, Alakungvfu, Auntie, Windblown-yours were equally tremendous. I read each of them several times, and frankly, liked them better than the famous examples I sought out. I don't think I will ever forget the night I spent writing this-nor do I think I will ever write one again (although I didn't drink, I probably would have benefited! ).

[qimissung]

I will have a new form by tomorrow.

[alakungfu]

Sorry, Pendragon, but I must say that I learned a lot about metre from this choice of form. Thank you for choosing it.

Congratulations, qimissung. I'll have to pay closer attention to the instructions of the next form, whatever you choose. And I was expecting you to win this time. That poem was tremendous.

[qimissung]

Our next form is going to be a dramatic monologue. This form was used in Greek plays, and of course Shakespeare used it to good effect. Robert Browning wrote several, the most famous of which is "The Last Duchess".

Here is an explanation from poets.org:

Dramatic monologue in poetry, also known as a persona poem, shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice"a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities that are left to the audience to interpret.

You can read the rest of the entry here:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5776

There are several excellent examples of this type of poetry at this site. In fact I found some of them quite daunting. Nevertheless, knowing my litnet friends are nothing if not intrepid, I decided to proceed.

I'm presenting a poem by Sylvia Plath as an example, and another written by me, as it hardly seems cricket to judge something you have not first attempted. Good luck to one and all, and above all, have fun!

The contest will close March 15.

Qimissung

[qimissung]

by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

[qimissung]

And now for mine. Following Sylvia Plath seems somewhat foolhardy, but here goes:

The Prince of Cats

We glide into the night, my friends and I
Indistinguishable from one another
Our voices echoing off the night wind
And each others’ faces
We get buzzed
The elixir of our manhood pillages my tongue
Reaches into crevices and washes out
The dregs of my psyche onto the night

We talk
The firelight of our conversation
Flickers on the faces of my friends
I am their reflected light
In the shine of oil and water
On the street
The moon on the fast-moving clouds
The ping of a headlight on the
Fender of our car
I glimmer and I ‘m gone

It’s night and I am the Prince of Cats
The road and I converge
Our massive muscles writhing
As we unfurl our sinuous tail
Lashing it across the wasted landscape
The car careens
What did I leave behind?
Who did I escape?
My lungs plummet into the absolute zero of space

Dazed I look around
Reach out
Take
I don’t where I am
But I know that I’ll be doing this again

[alakungfu]

My World

I did it!
I finally did it.
I didn’t believe myself
That I could
But I can’t ever say again
That I didn’t do it.
Because it’s a fact now.

And, now, what do I do?
That was my forever-
Be-all-end-all
My reason for dreaming,
To see how vast
I could dream
With my eyes closed,
What challenge I was
Solid enough to meet
With my eyes open.

How do you replace your dream?
Your whole life thrusts
In a different direction
And you follow it?
I used to run with my dream.

It’s so strange not to want
That anymore,
Not to be unconditionally enamored of life.
Today I embraced life
Like my brother,
Like we’re in it
From now on
Together
But no longer ‘til the end.
Life has a real shape for me
“The End” is just a table
Within a random plane
Where before it was a shattering peak
Gaping into a bravely framed oblivion.

The end, the irreplaceable,
Has been replaced
In my perspective
With my Soul.
I no longer carry a partly full
Vessel within my body as my conscience.
I have a burgeoning soul,
My index for beautiful dreams
That I might one day attain
Depending on those that I’m virtually drawn to.

But did I say I’ve found fulfillment?
There is, after all, the impossible still.
For life, there is no justification
No answer.
I am sustained in my search by my precious option
Love
Which penetrates
My grounding principle
My psyche.

[qimissung]

"The End" is just a table within a random frame..." that is just one image I love in this poem. In fact you create a series of images with this persona, all the while leaving our imaginations to wildly surmise. Well done, Alakungfu, well done.

[windblown]

Congratulations, qimissung! Pendragon chose well! I simply love your images and the elegant flow of your lines.

[qimissung]

Thank you, Windblown. I look forward to seeing your entry in the next contest!