ENTRIES ARE OFFICIALLY CLOSED
Entries close midnight Sunday, November 21.
The First Annual Numéro Cinq Rondeau Writing Contest opens for entries November 1 (midnight tonight as of this writing). The rondeau is a slightly intricate little form (see preamble and definitions below). You should not attempt to write one under the influence of intoxicants or while using a cell phone (unless you are writing it on your cell phone). Also do not attempt to operate heavy machinery while composing your rondeau. Don’t shy away from trying a rondeau just because you consider yourself a rhyme & rhythm-challenged prose-writer. Fiction and nonfiction writers always need a dash of form in their lives, something to make them sit up straight (or just to jar the gears loose). As with all the NC contests, there is a method behind the madness. Beyond the discipline of form, we discover the freedom of aesthetic space. Every contest is a teaching moment, a formal lesson, and a moment of unleashing (paradoxical as that seems). Also, if you look at our previous contests, you will see that they are fun. Submit entries by typing them into the comment box beneath this post.
The Contest
The rondeau is an old French form, and, like the villanelle, works with a refrain. The refrain starts as the first words of the first line of the poem and is repeated at the end of the second and third stanzas. And the trick is to get the refrain, especially at the end, to dovetail nicely with the theme of the poem. (It might be helpful to begin with the refrain and invent the rest of the poem around it.) And just because I started this in a tone of high seriousness doesn’t mean you can’t parody the form. Remember arrogance and wit are the supreme values at Numéro Cinq.
Here is a description of the form patched in from the About.com rondeau page (check this out for more examples).
As it is used in modern English, the rondeau is a poem of 15 lines of eight or ten syllables arranged in three stanzas — the first stanza is five lines (quintet), the second four lines (quatrain), and the final stanza six lines (sestet). The first part of the first line becomes the rondeau’s rentrement (refrain) when it is repeated as the last line of each of the two succeeding stanzas. Aside from the rentrement, which obviously rhymes because it is the same repeated words, only two rhymes are used in the entire poem. The entire scheme looks like this (with “R” used to indicate the rentrement):
a
a
b
b
a————
a
a
b
R
————-
a
a
b
b
a
R
As with all previous NC contests, you enter by copying your poem into a comment at the foot of this post. Entry is open to anyone, not just card-carrying members of the NC community. If you are under 16, please indicate this fact in case we want to set up a separate contest class. Enter more than once, if you like. Please proofread your poem before you hit the submit button because you can’t go back and edit it after it’s submitted. The contest begins November 1 and closes midnight November 21. Remember to display wit and arrogance. You don’t stand a chance in this pirate crowd without wit and arrogance (and a sense of humour). Also please get the form straight (rhyme scheme & refrain) before you enter! Canadian spelling will win you extra points but is not necessary.
Here is another description (with examples) of the rondeau form. And here.
John McCrae’s famous Would War I poem “In Flanders Fields” is an example of the form.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
As is W. E. Henley’s “In Rotten Row.”
In Rotten Row
In Rotten Row a cigarette
I sat and smoked, with no regret
For all the tumult that had been.
The distances were still and green,
And streaked with shadows cool and wet.Two sweethearts on a bench were set,
Two birds among the boughs were met;
So love and song were heard and seen
In Rotten Row.A horse or two there was to fret
The soundless sand; but work and debt,
Fair flowers and falling leaves between,
While clocks are chiming clear and keen,
A man may very well forget
In Rotten Row.
Newcomers who are unfamiliar with the way our contests operate, please look at the Contests page.
The usual expensive prizes, laurels, kudos will be awarded at the usual venue. For those who wish to tip the judges (cash, gold, Treasury bills) beforehand, an address will be provided. Competition is expected to be fierce, vicious, underhanded, and highly politicized.
dg
Believe it or not, I too memorized this poem in elementary school. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade, but my history teacher, Mr. Powers, made us learn it by heart. It came back to me quite acutely when I was in Belgium last year, and passed many of the famous WWI battlefields (Verdun, Ypres, Liege, etc.) Seeing those names on roadsigns struck me as eerie, the seemingly benign nature of roadsigns juxtaposed with the historical contex. I regretted not being able to visit any of the sites because I was a h/s football coach and we were on a bus heading to a game, but it made an impression.
I think the trick in the contest will be to try not to fall into a sing-song imitation. I imagine this poem is wedged into a kind of common consciousness.
You mean none of this:
“On Hunger Mountain where daisies blow…”
Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so bad… 🙂
An example from John Hollander’s *Rhyme’s Reason*:
The rondeau’s French in origin.
For several centuries it’s been
Of use for light verse, in the main;
Handling its lines can be the bane
Of someone with an ear that’s tin.
The first words with which we begin
Return, like a recurring sin–
More Magdalen’s than the crime of Cain.
(The rondeau’s French!)
That’s called the rentrement; and in
The course of hearing these lines spin
Themselves out, one may wait in vain
For more rhymes, or a full refrain.
With hardly any loss or gain
English replaces, with a grin,
The rondeau’s French.
Thank you, v. I was hoping someone would put up a more contemporary poem. And this one’s about itself. Nice.
The form has since evolved to what is now called a Rondeau Redouble. It reads like a mix between a Rondeau and a Pantoum. Here’s a great (and witty) example with a great refrain:
Rondeau Redouble
By Wendy Cope
There are so many kinds of awful men –
One can’t avoid them all. She often said
She’d never make the same mistake again;
She always made a new mistake instead.
The chinless type who made her feel ill-bred;
The practised charmer, less than charming when
He talked about the wife and kids and fled –
There are so many kinds of awful men.
The half-crazed hippy, deeply into Zen,
Whose cryptic homilies she came to dread;
The fervent youth who worshipped Tony Benn –
‘One can’t avoid them all,’she often said.
The ageing banker, rich and overfed,
Who held forth on the dollar and then yen –
Though there were many more mistakes ahead,
She’d never make the same mistake again.
The budding poet, scribbling in his den
Odes not to her but to his pussy, Fred;
The drunk who fell asleep at nine or ten –
She always made a new mistake instead.
And so the gambler was at least unwed
And didn’t preach or sneer or wield a pen
Or hoard his wealth or take the Scotch to bed.
She’d lived and learned and lived and learned but then
There are so many kinds.
Thanks, Sarah. Again for a contemporary example.
I just caught a bullet with my hard head.
Someone (my wife) really wanted me dead.
But I’ve played catch with her a thousand times
Plates, vases, even grandfather clock chimes.
So I pleaded with her, “Why this bloodshed?”
“You motherless fucking bastard,” she said
“Why is my sister sprawled out in our bed?”
I said not one of my long-rehearsed lines,
I just caught a bullet with my hard head.
While I have played catch with plenty of lead,
And many have wished me deader than dead,
Surviving is one of my dear pastimes
(And so is, by the way, the Guggenheim).
Now my blood and some light merge infrared.
I just caught a bullet with my hard head.
Yesterday I memorized “In Flanders Fields,” (which my father can still recite), wrote down the rhyme scheme and set out on a three week journey to write a rondeau. But when I read (and fiddled with) this again this morning, I thought it would be fun to be the first to enter. Let the games begin!
Things Unknown
What to write about
I’ve no idea. A trout
Might find it sooner than I.
My writing’s substance’s in the sky,
It’s whipping down a stream: a kite
Has swum away with it. I’d flout
And toss my themes like stars about
If I could only, for a start, ply
You with what to write.
Stars form constellations without
Knowing how we scout
For rhyme and reason; try
The same with my
Heart and I’ll find out
What to write.
drew’s poem wasn’t up yet when i enterred this. . .
It was almost simultaneous. 🙂
Repayment
Thirty-five years ago
Looking out the car window
Being driven home from camp, the sky vast,
Watching the telephone lines loop past
Falling asleep with a stuffed tiger pillow –
And now I finally know
How you earn such grace. You grow,
You drive your own son home, car fueled and gassed:
Somehow, the debt’s repaid.
It’s nothing more than this, you know:
To drive as you were driven, to go
Along the same highway, not fast
Cautiously, responsible, at last,
Letting the sleeping child in the back seat show:
Somehow, the debt’s repaid.
Douglas Fields
In Douglas fields the moss does grow
a blade of grass won’t break status quo*
to every person the field panders
why would anyone go to Flanders?
Douglas fields is where you’ll go!
behind the backyard the creek does flow
and Hobbes does roam the ground below
he’s chomping on a moose’s antler
in Douglas fields
the signs of autumn start to show
when on the lawn the leaves do blow
stop by my friends, take a gander!
Flanders field is much blander!
you’ll never quarrel with a foe
in Douglas fields
*for those of you who haven’t seen our lawn, we’ve actually stopped calling it the lawn and started calling it a made up word known as ‘mawn’. Mathematically speaking, the mawn is moss + lawn which of course equals mawn.
Some of you know that Hobbes, the NC cat, who often appeared on these pages, disappeared last week. Disappearing is not a habit with Hobbes, so we are fearful and a bit downhearted.
We have a mawn too!
What Dad means, is that we wish we could be on his adventure with him. It’s not like Hobbes to leave us home when he goes for walks. Clearly though, we weren’t allowed to come because we are a bit slow for his romps in the forest.
What my dear father is forgetting, is that WE ARE STAYING POSITIVE!
It’s good there’s an optimist in the family. 🙂
And we shall all stay positive right along with you, Jonah.
I hope Hobbes hobbles home soon (or better yet scampers).
I’m sure Hobbes will return to the mawn as soon as he learns that he’s been honored by name in a rondeau.
A revision, this draft correct in form:
Repayment
Somehow, the debt’s repaid. To owe
So much: thirty five years ago,
being driven home from camp, the sky vast,
Watching out the window as the telephone lines loop past
Falling asleep with a stuffed tiger pillow –
And now I finally know
How you earn such grace. You grow,
You drive your own son home, car fueled and gassed:
Somehow, the debt’s repaid.
It’s nothing more than this, you know:
To drive as you were driven, to go
Along the same highway, not fast
Cautiously, responsible, at last,
Letting the sleeping child in the back seat show:
Somehow, the debt’s repaid.
nice revision Steve. Gives me courage to fix my rhyme scheme….but not tonight. 🙂
This is a lovely piece.
My friend Dana Wilde write an excellent nature column for the Bangor Daily News called The Amateur Naturalist, and he also runs a poetry space called Uni-Verse. He gets complaints from aggrieved readers that the poems don’t rhyme. I sent him this.
AN OLD COMPLAINT AGAINST THE NEW
Why don’t they rhyme, the peevish man complains?
And the editor once more patiently explains
That poems lilting with bright poppies about the dead
Disgusted those who watched friends die in bloody mud
And called such cloying songs an insult to their pain.
Surely, we should whistle some happy tune
Whenever terror that unbeing might be our doom
haunts our lonely brains. Thus he still rejoins,
Why don’t they rhyme?
Despite aggrieved and righteous whines
No one buys poem books, even those with rhymes.
So poets please themselves now, late or soon,
And no longer scribble verses about moons in June.
Yet those deaf to sounds of sense inside of lines
Still ask, why don’t they rhyme?
I’m going for the Canadian angle…
In Fort St John
In Fort St John, the has-been drives
his musclecar trying to revive
a fleeting moment of his youth
a memory of sweet vermouth
on Friday nights inside some dive.
Once he was slick, fiery, alive
inside his skin, unlike this jive
burned-out fat Peter Pan, uncouth
in Fort St John.
I watched too many like you thrive
on pumped up chests, on high sex drives
on women’s cries. Tonight the truth
conscripts you to a barroom booth
of scorn and lies. Now you’ve arrived
in Fort St John.
Hey, Genni, glad to see you here. Thank you for the poem.
Thought you needed a Canadian one.
Absolutely! Wish there were more. Maybe everyone up there is shy. 🙂
Very cool, Genni.
My entry:
Idaho
by Ashley Inguanta
Love, take me back to Idaho,
to that place where all your women go
to watch the bees and the bears sip rain,
while their own bodies starve, a refrain
echoed in deep, sweet places below.
Below is where the plum-hearted go,
Who have not yet been harvested, hollowed.
Yet they watch the women starve in vain,
Saying, love, take me back to Idaho.
But love is just a full moon thrown
Into the palm of a girl not yet grown,
Who feels as if her heart has gone lame
As she sees mothers starved sick in the rain.
When bees and bears fill their bellies for show
Daughters say, take me back to Idaho.
Thanks, Ashley. Welcome to NC.
The Me in the Moose (after Reading Derrida)
I lost myself in the moose’s eyes.
He waded across the river, we, on opposing sides.
He looked up from lunch to gaze
I from Me was sundered in an abyssal haze.
He went on unaware, but I was anaesthetized.
No longer was my Me inside
The moose hadn’t a clue, I surmise
That he had taken my Me away.
I lost myself.
Part of my I in the moose now lies
The part which was hurt, when my I cried,
But the moose doesn’t know his sundering ways.
I blame him not but only praise
For I found my I in the moose’s eyes
But lost myself on the riverside.
Thistle Down
Among the thistle down a swing
A tiny beast weaves silken string
With hairy legs and rapid eye
Though brown as loss, fails to belie
his endmost warp ‘til death bells ring
We sprawl in weeds where crickets sing
As Spider wefts one final fling
a lacework aperture to sky
Among the thistle down
We trade the woes of winter’s cling
for long last looks at Spider King
Whose reign on life relents to die
Whose wasted labors bend and dry
And loose their grasp and take to wing
Among the thistle down
Soul Searching
I followed my hunger around the Earth,
a search to discover my own self-worth.
Home, I, again, begin to question all,
all I sense, all I experienced; call
my soul from Fall’s bare end. I in my berth,
a voice without volume, can not traverse
the span, initiate healing, rebirth.
A phoenix without flame, cooled, a seagull,
I follow my hunger.
I find in my new persona no mirth.
Squawk Squawk Squawk. No intellect, scope, a dearth
of passion, patience, perseverance; gall,
primitivity guide me. Harsh snowfall.
I long for summer fire, to regain girth,
to follow my hunger.
Yes
Yes, yes, yes, he says as night
falls fantasmal over mustard light
of street lamps, snow falls, clisp,
clisp, and the air a gelid mist
burns fire in the lungs and blurs sight.
The girl leans in, eyes shut, for a tight-
lipped kiss, and the scent of her breath bites
like the scent of apples, cut hay and wist-
ful dog day love. Yes, yes, yes, he says.
Happy, she says. Don’t ask, she says, fight-
ing love’s fatality and the blight
of need. Smell, she says, touching her wrist
to his cheek, then disappears into the mist,
the snow, the gelid dark, whirling in her flight.
Oh, yes, he says.
Yes. Yes.
Ok, what do you expect in 20 minutes?
I didn’t get the syllables right, but I don’t like the sing-song effect anyway (I know, I know, it’s part of the form). But it rhymes!
But I like this because it’s autobiographical and refers to a New Years Eve sometime in the last century when DG pulled holiday duty at the Examiner where he was a reporter. He had just been taking photos at a drunken, squalid ball for the social page and stepped out into the night and a lovely, sweet young thing (dg was young then, too), walking alone just after midnight, leaned her face up and kissed him and said Happy New Year and walked away.
With apologies to Molly Bloom, I hope. 🙂
She’s probably okay with this. I just wanted to be positive. 🙂
You’re probably right; I understand she’s pretty cooperative.
She did kind of over use the word “yes.” This makes it difficult for the rest of us to be so upbeat.
Nice Doug. Both the rondeau and the reminiscence. 🙂
Yes
Thanks, you guys. I’m not really in the contest. I know the judge too well. Conflict of interest and all. But it’s fun to write these things.
Well, you know, she didn’t have the educational advantages some of the rest of us have had…MFAs, and all that.
I bet she never read Joyce.
🙂
And how do you know the sweet young thing who kissed you wasn’t Molly Bloom herself?
Okay, well, this opens up the whole question of why I seem to think of Molly Bloom as a large red-faced sweaty washerwoman. I believe there is no textual evidence for this at all. In any case, in my mind, she could not have been Molly Bloom (wrong age, too–maybe Molly Bloom’s grand-daughter).
What I should be doing on this day off from my job: Working on creative thesis. What I am doing: Trying to write a rondeau. I am employing the theory that doing so will unleash a burst of creative juices (which I hope is not as messy as it sounds) which will propel me through revisions and on to newer, brilliant work.
Well, you may be on the right track. Call it priming the pump, and then let the momentum carry you away…
It worked for me.
That’s my philosophy too! And why not? The worst that can happen is you’ll produce a rondeau, right?
Okay, so at least the rentrement and title come from Canadian sources.
What Do You Do With a Headstrong Girl?
She practices, participates,
Planning for time in other states
Scowling at her dad and at me
What can we know? How dare I plea?
She bides her time; she tensely waits.
We live by deadlines, marking dates
Until she leaves, soul wrapped in fates
For stranger times, a life made free.
Oh, my headstrong girl.
Years arranged to pass these last gates
Or so she hopes, anticipates.
How can I say what life will be?
Patterns repeat; the warnings we
Throw fall short and false. Nothing sates
A headstrong girl.
Indeed; one of my favorite lines, it is.
My lawyers are looking into possible copyright infringement, especially if this becomes a bestseller or it gets made into a movie.
Or, you could buy me a shot of Talisker at the residency. 🙂
Done. Note: Comment box agreements constitute written contracts, so don’t come calling when AMC makes “Headstrong Girl” into a mini-series.
🙂
Hey, everyone. Here are some poppies for Veteran’s/Remembrance Day:
http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Italian%20Images/images/Tuscan%20Country/Poppy-Images/Poppies-May04-D0033sAR.jpg
Who Do You Think You Are?
I’m writing a poem, he said to the girl, a rondeau.
She sat at his table and her cleavage did show.
You a poet? she asked. This chick had some swank
And poets get lucky, so no need to be frank.
He told her he was as she ordered Bordeaux.
Poets are sexy, she said, but lacking in dough.
I write too, on occasion, my name’s Alice Munro.
He felt horribly trapped, and his mind it went blank.
I’m writing a poem.
Where had he published, she wanted to know,
New York, Paris, Sydney, Toronto?
He slurped down the wine, regretting his prank
Then he shouted with pride, On Numero Cinq!
So take your short stories, your wine and just go,
I’m writing a poem.
I am a bit speechless. Did you actually plan your whole rondeau around that line?
It’s actually a nice little scene, too. 🙂
Thanks…the NC line was aided by my wife’s help on French pronunciation..otherwise I would have been rhyming with “sink” instead of “sank”! (Too much time living in Andalucia, perhaps.)
The second refrain cracked me up!
This is a good one! I actually felt real shock at the thought of sitting across from Alice Munro in that scene. I like the narrative feel of the poem, and how well the rhythms work in it.
Brilliant excellent hilarious and crafty and somehow, blue.
Thanks guys. I’ve already bought the Talisker, so I don’t even need a ‘W’ on this…I’m down with single malt by virtue of proximity.
In Litmag Land
In Litmag Land the writers play
With words and phrases, day by day,
While Editors, with sneering lip,
Rolling eye and cracking whip,
Watch their victims beg and pray.
We are the Arbiters, they say.
Blue pencils poised, they have their way,
Rejoice with each rejection slip
In Litmag Land.
But lowly scriveners, come what may,
Dare not from their fond dreams to stray;
With sharpened pencils in their grip,
Or brand new pens in ink they dip,
Persist until their locks turn gray
In Litmag Land.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ah, this was drips with,what,sarcasm. Nice, v.
Funny!
The Way To A Man’s Heart is Through His Stomach, or
Kitchen Ostinato
In the kitchen, eating avocado,
Sits a housewife and a desperado.
He weeps gently while she peels a carrot.
“Things are not what they seem!” squawks her parrot,
then with his beak, pecks an ostinato.
The housewife drinks some amontillado
then scoops a handful of turbinado
to sweeten the tea before they share it
in the kitchen.
The cowboy, trouble aficionado,
tells her that his name is Leonardo.
He’s wasted years on things without merit.
Would he settle down now? Could he dare it?
He gives her a stolen carbinado
in the kitchen.
what’s a carbinado? I think I want one.
A black diamond. Let me know if you get one!
Very nice, Anna Maria.
Sweet!
Please note the feminine rhyme scheme, appropriate for a domestic scene with a housewife.
Another rhyme I considered using was “bastinato,” but I decided that wasn’t something I wanted to get into.
You have outdone yourself! Lovely.
Thanks, dg!
So, how long do we have to vote?
Hold your horses. No voting yet. Still three days for entries, counting today. 🙂
Oh, it’s the 21st; I thought it was the 15th. I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to post mine.
Do another one.
Nah, might as well keep up my losing tradition. 🙂
Besides, I’m in Kentucky celebrating several birthdays (including mine).
Happy Birthday!!
Well, ok, but just because you asked for it.
Birthday Rondeau
(for those of us born in November)
Advancing age will let us down
Quicker than a strapless gown.
The mirror’s view is looking blighted:
Body a wreck, presbyopically sighted,
Face fixed in a perpetual frown.
No longer do we sport youth’s crown;
These curls are white which once were brown.
We rue those days in which we slighted
Advancing age.
Now Senior is a proper noun
Though in opprobrium we drown,
Desire unreturned, lust unrequited.
Our spurning loves, as one, have cited
That sad excuse of long renown:
Advancing age.
Great, now that you’ve put a cloud over my Sunday, why don’t you write a comic rondeau about Death. 🙂
Unfortunately there are only 13 hours left, and I plan to spend the afternoon/evening with four ten-year-olds at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, followed by dinner at the Fuji Steakhouse in Louisville. I’ll be thinking of you, though. 🙂
((((Hobbes))))
No sign of the Hobbes Cat. DG & Jonah are in denial.
Where is your rondeau? 🙂
(Here is one)
Absurd Rondeau
An irresistible calling Saul Bellow
Between the mosses, below! Below!
And scarred face, and Indian Eye,
Bombards! Yet gravely ringing by!
Absurd as eating stir fried crow.
We’ve been fed fresh fallen snow!
We jived. We froze. We shot crossbow.
We stroked; were stoked. And now we sigh
calling Saul Bellow.
Take up your hemline a knee to show:
To you from streets, rocks we throw.
And scorch the night with flames and thigh
If ice ye break with us who sigh,
We do not speak, yet our eyes do glow,
calling Saul Bellow!
Excellent. 🙂
Why thank you kind sir!
This is thanks to Anna Maria, whose blog and own rondeau lead me to this site.
My Muse is a B*tch, or
At Least I Can Still Write a Poem When I Want To
The string had broken. Days long passed
Since I had written a song last.
I tried in vain the chords to find
That’d go with words to ease my mind
But insp’ration hath deserts vast.
When I believed the die was cast
The songs, they came, and they came fast
I thought I’d left dry days behind
The string had broken.
Passion’s sweet, but strong is its blast
I saw not that clouds had amassed
A storm gives rain but is not kind
It gets you wet and leaves you blind
Until you’ll realize, aghast,
The string had broken.
Thanks, Jason, for joining in.
Yay, Jason! My worlds are colliding. Thanks for bravely joining in the fun!
Whew! Finished, with a few hours to spare before the deadline!
Here are a couple. I couldn’t decide which I felt worked more, so I’m putting ’em out there for the world to see.
1.
In Nicaea
In Nicaea, did they all choose
To gild the words of old Good News.
In god-like robes, for all to see
They dressed that soul from Galilee:
No longer man, this King of Jews.
Hundreds gathered, filled up the pews
With Bishops, all to air their views
On that old question of Divinity,
Once and for all, in Nicaea.
Arius said: “Do not misuse
The name of Christ. Be not confused!
Our Lord was Man!” That was his plea.
The rest believed that God was three,
And by a vote did his side lose:
A dead man became God in Nicaea.
2.
Dreams
In my dream, I swung from the sky
Like Spider-Man! And whom did I spy
Standing atop a ‘scraper tall
But Barak Obama, all poised to fall:
Had I not caught him, he’d have surely died.
I also saw, in my mind’s eye
A poor man chopped to bits. I tried to cry
Out but awoke, struck my head on the wall.
Jesus Christ! It was just a dream.
One night I saw dark heav’n up high
Burst open in a blaze of light. It dyed
The air with gold and violet falls,
Cascading down the starry walls.
A beatific sight, I dare not try
To reach. It was only a dream.
Many thanks to my sister (and fellow writer) Gabrielle Volke, for getting me involved in this!
Haha yikes, I just realised I had less than 15 minutes before the deadline. That’s what I get for living on the West Coast…
I never thought of that. Of course, you on the west coast have three more hours. Actually, if you were in Hawaii you’d have even longer. This is an issue that has never come up.
I remember Jack Hodgins complaining that he would wake up in the morning and the news for the day had already happened.
Excellent. Thanks, Liam and thank, Gabrielle.
wow, I liked both of those! Thanks.
Missed the deadline, dang.
My vote goes to Vivian for the Birthday Rondeau. It’s technically accomplished, engages me in terms of advancing age (having slighted it myself and now suffering the consequences) and besides, I am determined to support any poem/poet using the word “presbyopically.”
Thanks, Julie. 🙂
Oops – this should have been posted on the Voting Page. I’ll re-post over there.