Sapphic Contest Judged - Craig Cornish's Blog

I thought in the beginning this would be easy to judge because of the difficulty of the form - I was wrong. There were many talented writes that made it difficult to choose between. Most everyone that got the meter correct is recognized in a placement except for those who may have gotten it correct but their poem neglected either grammar or didn't make sense. Also that jux or Haiku-like "ah ha" which was either clever and/or entertaining. I gave extra weight to those who avoided overuse of gerunds and adverbs. I'd like to especially recognize the top 5 writes for accomplishing some very special poems, while also praising every one of the winners. Gregory Barden's poem "Yesterday's Shadows" is exceptional in that it not only hit on the meter but did so without overusing gerunds and adverbs as a crutch to acomplish it, but more importantly while weaving artistic expression most can't accomplish without the parameters of this form. The only unfortunate is that even those who write poetry can not appreciate how difficult it is to do what even the Greeks said was a serious challenge. As I clearly stated in a previous blog, the poem "Blissful Ignorance"  by Nina Parmenter was masterful as well; I love how it goes from dark to the "Meanwhile - we party". The Baron did similarly well with his "Do Wah diddy diddy" and his final lines were equally entertaining. P.S. Auty's "Church Dinners" had me smiling all the way through and applauding as well. Rob Carmack was the most clever with his excellent write leading to what may have been the best "Ah ha" at the end. Thanks to all.  I will post all the winners now.