Challenge!
October Challenge
October's challenge was to write Poetry of Place, poems that spoke to the poet's fancy of time and place. Challenge author Shawn Nacona Stroud used Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" as idea/inspiration.
The winner of the challenge was Jim Corner, with his entry "Eureka Springs" which appears below.
We also have three honorable mentions:
1st - Bill Flewelling, "One Sunday Afternoon"
2nd - Laurie Byro, "Resurrection in Hiawatha"
3rd - Christopher T. George, "Mersey Mersey Me"
Eureka Springs
You sat quietly in the flash of sliding
auto lights as old Number Seventy
wound itself around rising hills
through the nine p.m. half-light;
was the jubilee of marriage
still ringing in your ears, or had
discontent located itself as you
faced your first naked love event?
Without warning you bounced
yourself against me, hot, burned
my thigh against yours, surprise
raked my groin as your blouse
fell open into dash-light. I climbed
precarious grades with decreasing
sight of the road, the remaining
time to Eureka Springs seemed endless.
Fatigue won the climb into the village
as we both spooned our bodies
into a curving oval on the featherbed
in the rustic rock cabin
as a full moon, now waning, spread
its slight orange-yellow beams forever.
JDC
Judge's Commentary:
Please join me and the rest of the members here at Desert Moon Review in Congratulating our winner for the Poetry of Place challenge James D. Corner for his poem "Eureka Springs". All the poems submitted this week were rich with imagery, everyone did a wonderful job with this challenge, but alas it had to be narrowed down to one winner and 3 HM's. I thought Jim's poem followed the guidelines of the challenge, had a wonderful mix of the elements of poetry, his grammar and punctuation on key, and really there was just a wonderfully skilled and unique blend of simile, metaphor, and imageries, which is really what this challenge is about, imagery. Showing your readers the place you are describing in such a way that it is like looking at a snap shot of the scene. I think that everyone did a great job with this challenge; it was terribly difficult to narrow down. Once again it is great to see a challenge inspire such beautifully penned work.
All of the wonderful entries for this challenge are available in the forum thread.
November Challenge
In November, DMR offered a challenge to its participants to write a collage poem. The idea was to create something entirely their own using another's words as tools and inspiration. The winning poem appears below.
The challenge was judged by Veronique Deshotels, Shawn Nacona Stroud, and a third judge who wishes to remain anonymous.
The winner was Rick Storey, with his entry "Collage of Lines from Seven Poems of Philip Larkin".
We also have two honorable mentions:
1st - Laurie Byro, "Couplet Collage"
2nd - Guy Kettelhack, "If Only It Were Easy"
Collage of Lines from Seven Poems of Philip Larkin
Is it that they are born again and we
grow old? No they die too -
sexual intercourse began, then all
at once the quarrel sank.
Sixteen sexual positions in the sand
precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
and dark towns heap up on the horizon.
Truly, though our element is time,
we are not suited to the long
perspectives open at each instant
of our lives, that when we start
to die, we have no idea why.
NOTES: Words and Word Order as in Larkin Line Elements. No word
additions or changes in word order.
Judge's Commentary:
A collage poem for me is a piece that is stitched together with an invisible thread so that the whole takes on its own meaning, a sort of "Frankenpoem" if you will. The stitched together appendages develop new life. While not always seamless, the parts always work to function together as a whole. It was these qualities as well as a strong mix of the elements of poetry, there is a strong blend of imageries of use of the senses " precede a sudden scuttle on the drum," and "and dark towns heap up on the horizon." I love "Sixteen sexual positions in the sand," and the piece really carries a nice sound particularly in the last lines. My compliments go out to the author on the bang-up job he/she did on piecing the work of Philip Larkin into their own "fresh" work!
and
A collage poem, according to my understanding, should be lightly surreal and asymmetrical, neither seamless nor too much of a patchwork. What I was looking for, I found in "Collage of Lines from Seven Poems of Philip Larkin" I enjoyed its brevity and oblique 16 positions in the sand reference.