EIF Poetry Challenge #10: The Results

This week’s challenge was to write a pantoum poem, which reads like a poetic waterfall. We have had another fantastic response to this challenge and I’m sure our judge and last week’s winner, Nick Reeves had an unenviable task. Here is Nick, in his own words:

Judge’s Comments

Oh, Pantoum! The word has been rolling around my tongue all week, summoning, I don’t know what – a dreamy, otherworldy music? Something exotic and with an air of perfume? A gauzy memory of love, of sadness? All of these and more…

I am normally one for free-verse, though I lean to the leonine, and I find puns almost irresistible. I suppose (out of laziness and ignorance) I find many forms hard work: I am lazy. But my introduction to this Malaysian/French nineteenth century import snared the lyricist, the romantic in me with its repetitions and its undulating imagery. It sounds folky and rooted in improvisation – to these ears, part Dylan, part Rakim, part Jim Dodge – as a story, a love story, a history, unfolds and is retold. It is based on an ABAB scheme, the second and the fourth line of each quatrain becoming the first and third of the following. Allusion is summoned and meaning follows. Repetez et ecoutez…

It has been a delight to immerse myself in these poems for the EIF poetry challenge and, it needn’t be said that to choose a winner has been easy. But I found the following three to be alluring enough to bring me back round for return readings as they are steeped in longing and romance and loneliness and history. So…

1st Place, ‘Music lifts my spirits‘ by Liyona

Melancholy music lifts my spirits
Even in the echo chambers beyond
Wherein lies the meaningful merits
Of a hope, a song, a bond

Even in the echo chambers beyond
Tarry neigh, my fleeting heart
Of a hope, a song, a bond
For ancient rhymes repeating do impart

Tarry neigh, my fleeting heart
Soft symphonies calm your nerves
For ancient rhymes repeating do impart
And spring eternal fills your reserves

Soft symphonies calm your nerves
Far as the seas span, I wait standing fearless
And spring eternal fills your reserves
The hope of our journey, with you my dearest

2nd Place, ‘Nightly‘ by Jaya Avendel

I have always found the night more beautiful than the day
Only in the inky blackness do the stars shine
Shyly peeking past the domineering sun
Daring to outnumber the moon.

Only in the inky blackness do the stars shine
Skilled flirters
Daring to outnumber the moon
Casting out feminine dreams.

Skilled flirters
The lords of day are sleeping now
Casting out feminine dreams.
Twenty-five pounds of silk slip off a woman.

The lords of day are sleeping now.
Shyly peeking past the domineering sun
Twenty-five pounds of silk slip off a woman
I have always found the night more beautiful than the day.

3rd Place: ‘Richard II‘ by Benji

Oh Richard did you get stabbed or left to rot in a Castle?
You did last 22 years as King:
From 1377-1399
Until someone plotted your undoing.

You did last 22 years as a King
But heavy lay the crown upon your head
From 1377-1399
Then later you were stabbed, or left for dead.

Heavy lay the crown upon your head
Your kinsmen made a plot to end your life
In 1400 you were stabbed, or left for dead
And later buried beside Anne, your wife.

Your kinsmen made a plot to end your life
though you did last 22 years as King
you were buried beside Anne, your wife
After someone plotted your undoing.

A big thank you to everyone who got involved and, please, a round of applause for Ingrid at Experiments In Fiction for allowing me to be part of this. Inevitably, I was prompted to write my own Pantoum, partly as adventure, partly to crush laziness!

Country & Western Is Dead

You left for the bathroom. I wiped the bar clean.
Some things, I suppose, are better unsaid.
Sometimes the news we receive is so mean.
“Country and western is dead.”

Some things, I suppose, are better unsaid.
You searched your sleeve for a tissue.
“Country and western is dead?”
I leaned over the bar, tried to kiss you.

You searched your sleeve for a tissue.
The neon in the parking lot ­­blinks.
I leaned over the bar, tried to kiss you.
You said, “Nicky, just set up the drinks.”

The neon in the parking lot blinks.
The jukebox begs to be fed.
You said, “Nicky, just set up the drinks.
Country and western is dead.”

Congratulations

Thank you to all who contributed your wonderful poems, for sharing your love of poetry with me and helping to keep the flame of poetry alive! Special thanks for Nick for his fine job of judging the challenge, and congratulations to all of our winners, especially Liyona to whom I would like to offer the chance of judging next week’s competition. See you same time next week for the next EIF Poetry Challenge!

Ingrid

Featured image: Photo by JACK REDGATE from Pexels