I have finished the sonnet competition. I'll have to ask your pardon for taking so long to get back to you. It took me a while to figure out what I had to do to get the contest to finalize. I was looking in the wrong place. It seems simple now that I found where to go.
Thank you all for the heart felt poems, even those I didn't select. As you all know, those who have done this before, a poetry "competition" run by one person, and not a panel of "judges" is going to boil down to which poems get under one's skin as much as attention to specific patterns or rhymes. However, I looked first for those that were 14 lines, with the three quatrains and a couplet recognizable. With a sonnet, as well as with iambic pentameter or blank verse, I tend to "feel" for the rhythm. That is, an extra syllable in a line or two doesn't change the quality of the poem or its dominate type. I'm trying to feel five beats per line.
More important than the mechanics, however, is the subject and the way it flows. Also, I like a surprise, something with vivid imagery that you can smell and see and feel and that seems to flow almost like music when you read it--something you want to read again and again because every time you read it, it speaks to you a little differently. Maybe that seems a little intense, and rather like a tall order, but it's the only way I can describe it.
So anyway, I wanted to give you the rationale for some of my choices; the "grand prize" which the site only allows me to label as "first place," I gave to "Fragrant Memories." This was my favorite from day one, and every time I got a few new poems, I went back and read this one. The imagery is so vivid, and it reminds me of my own blank verse poem "Improvements." I love the "smell of new mown hay and baking bread." And oh golly, the perfumed air of hyacinth, the sound of hooting owls, and toasting treats on a fork--oh my gosh, I lived there--not in New Hampshire but in the Adirondack mountains of New York. Summer after summer, camping in those hills on the bank of Spruce Creek. This poem was truly for me. The only thing I would have done differently is to change the last word of the poem from "chime" to "mine."
The next poem--actually first place in my mind although marked second--is "My Juliet." It is reminiscent of Shakespeare's "My Love is Nothing Like a Rose," but with its own twist. I found it sweet and pensive; and I like the little disclaimer in the couplet. The speaker loves his Juliet for who she is, not for how she looks, like most of the other boys probably do. At least that's what it seems to imply. It seems frank and sincere, not sticky sweet and overdone as many love poems are.
"Within a Storm" came next, and I really struggled with this one. I felt like it should have been tied with "My Juliet" because it is so different and yet so true. And even while it contains several metaphors, they are not out of reach or difficult for a 14 year old to grasp. Also, given today's environment where it is really tough for a young person who wants to be true to moral values, the poem is especially true. So those were without question my top three.
Then came Single Sonnet, and a Butterfly Sonnet. Again, they could be interchanged, but I liked the rhythm of the sounds in Single Sonnet the best. The assonance and consonance gives it the musical quality that appeals to me.
The remainder, those receiving honorable mention were simply what I felt to be the best of the rest, those truest to the English sonnet form with also a unique approach to their topics--something that only a poet would think of.
As a prize, in addition to mention here, I offered publication in
Wonderful, Magical Words, the 8th grade literature text that will be published through The Roger Sherman Institute. Parts of the book are being used now, but the entire book still needs to have the non-fiction section added along with all of the indexing, glossary and sources, so it will be a little while longer before it is finished. No one is "obligated" to have their poem included if you do not wish it. However, I am willing to add all eleven to the poetry unit. In order to do that, I need written permission from each poet who wants his/her work included.
You can copy paste the following form and email it to me at "silverscribler@aol.com."
The text itself is electronic at this point, but may be made available in print eventually. The winners will receive a copy of the electronic version if they want their poems included.
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I, ______________, give permission for the inclusion of my poem _______________, in the First edition of
Wonderful, Magical Words, both the electronic version and any print version that may be published.
Date _________________
Name: (Your name here is regarded as an electronic signature) ____________________