Numéro Cinq Villanelle Contest Archives

Large numbers of supporters waited outside dg's house for the formal announcement this morning

At long last the People have spoken, two winners have emerged, both co-equal in the esteem of public and peers, whose vision is ever wise, democratic and mysteriously accurate (on the other hand, dg has been known to have counted the votes inaccurately). The voting was close, and several villanelles came in for exuberant praise from their supporters. Some people voted so many times it was difficult to keep count. But this year’s winners are Lynne Quarmby for her science villanelle “Antonj van Leeuwenhoek” and Kim Aubrey for her “Canadian Shield, or a middle-aged woman’s thoughts turn to the cottage.” May they wear their crowns with appropriate dignity and pride as befitting winners of one of North American’s most prestigious literary prizes (winners are expected to wear their crowns, without fail, for a whole year, even in the shower; they are also required to appear at promotional events for Numéro Cinq at their own expense and appear in public wearing sandwich boards advertising the magazine and various licensed products including our line of Blue Dog figurines, our High School Essays Tailored For You subsidiary, and the ever popular Gary Garvin ballroom dancing instructional CD).

Count the votes for yourselves here. Discrepancies will be rigorously investigated and illegalities or miscounts will be prosecuted to the extent of the law.

View the complete entry list here.

Read the winning villanelles below.

Not a villanelle

Also not a villanelle

Definitely not a villanelle either

Entries for the Second Annual Numéro Cinq Villanelle Contest are officially closed. It was a banner year for entries, plenty of panache, wit and arrogance on display, some pathos, some tragedy, some humor. There are cute villanelles, cuddly villanelles, obstinate villanelles, sly villanelles, and improper villanelles, something for all tastes. As usual with NC competitions, the adjudication now splits into two streams. While the rowdy & belligerent (official) judges are being rounded up from various bars, you, the people, yes, YOU! get to choose the People’s Choice winner.

This is always a joyful and entertaining aspect of the contest judging. You get to read the entries, comment and vote or vote with commentary or just comment on the generally high quality, the wit, the arrogance, and the intelligence of the entries. Voting is open to anyone, REALLY!

The official entry list is here. PLEASE VOTE IN A COMMENT TO THIS POST (NOT ON THE ENTRY LIST).

As is often the case, it will be helpful if, before actually making a choice, you look up what a villanelle is (see the official entry post for hints and check out last year’s winner for inspiration). Even as I type this, the official judges (belligerent & rowdy) are being given a crash course on villanelle-writing (truth be told, this is not going well).

Read the entries, kick yourselves for not having entered this esteemed and wildly popular competition (if you didn’t), and place your votes in the comment box beneath this post.

You have 10 days (May 27 to midnight June 5) to place your votes!

Don’t forget to actually read the entries before voting!

And please quote the entry and the name of the author you vote for.

As of midnight June 5, the vote tabulation is as follows (these include votes cast incorrectly on the entry site–how many times do I have to tell you where to vote–sigh!):

Laura-Rose Russell “Once I Was Lonely (A “Why Not?” Villanelle)” 4

Kim Aubrey “Canadian Shield…” 6

Lynne Quarmby “Antonj van Leeuwenhoek” 6

Meg Harris “Rapture” 3

Jodi Paloni “A Once Determined Chair” 3

Lee Busby “Fishbar Villanelle” 4

Anna Maria Johnson “Mystery of Domesticity” 3

Maggie Kast “That’s Art” 2

Any Amaran “Kali’s Villanelle” 1

This is just to remind everyone that as I write this we have less than 18 hours to Rapture (also 24 hours til the end of the NC Villanelle Contest—get your entries in before the “dead” line).

Calculating rapture day

Harold Camping, who has gone on record as saying the world was created in 11,013B.C., believes the Bible teaches that the flood of Noah’s day was in 4990 B.C.

Camping, leader of the Oakland-based ministry Family Radio Worldwide, then points to the Apostle Peter in the 1st century writing of Noah’s flood in an epistle where he also warns that God will one day destroy the world by fire.

Camping often quotes from 2 Peter 3:8, which reads: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

According to Camping, who takes literally Genesis 7:4, where God warns Noah, “For yet (in) seven days” he would cause it to rain on the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights, the seven days can be interpreted as 7,000 years.

So, says Camping, when God told Noah there were seven days to escape the flood, he also was warning that there would be 7,000 years to escape the final judgment.

Camping’s math says that when one subtracts a year in moving from “an Old Testament B.C. calendar date to a New Testament A.D,” the 7,000 years take the world from Noah’s flood to 2011.

He also teaches that May 21 corresponds to the exact day Noah’s flood started.

via Rapture preacher says today is Judgement Day – ContraCostaTimes.com.

Exciting scenes from last year's regional villanelle writing competition. No animals were harmed in the production of these images. Special prize for anyone who can pick out NC Contributing Editor Gary Garvin.

ENTRIES CLOSED; THIS ONE HAS GONE TO THE JUDGES!

HUMONGOUS PRIZES!

BECOME A LITERARY CELEBRITY AT NO COST TO YOU!

Time for another kick at the can, another chance to be instantly famous across the Internet, around the world, in your neighbourhood—paparazzi will hound you, small children (not your own) will ask for your autograph, the greeter at McDonald’s will escort you to your table amidst hysterical applause, Kate & William will send telegrams (all right, tawdry celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be, but this is the price of literary fame).

Entries will be accepted between May 1 and May 21. Entries, as with the aphorism contest, should be posted as comments on this page. Entries are open to anyone in the world, but only if they are written in English, French, Latin, or classical Greek (the only languages anyone can speak in this house). As with the aphorism contest, I encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the form. See the craft and technique page for help. Roughly speaking, we’re talking about a 19-line poem written in tercets (except for the last stanza which has four lines). The first and last line of the first stanza become the last lines of the following stanzas and also turn into a couplet at the end of the last stanza. These are fun to write and can actually turn out surprisingly well if you arm yourselves with strong refrain lines (think: panache, drama, obsession, schizophrenia). You need not be a poet to enter. And it’s always a good thing for prose writers to extend themselves; it makes their prose more interesting. One lesson to be drawn from writing a poem like this is the way form drives content instead of the other way around.

One example, familiar to most of us, is Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Okay, this was an evil contest for the judge who has been tortured trying to decide among the Final Five (not to mention the other estimable entries). Never mind that after the aphorism contest the judge had to hide out in Sea Hills, NJ, for five weeks to avoid violence and public opprobrium. This time the pain was in the judging (and, believe me, the judge tried to hand off the honours but was flatly turned down several times). This time the general quality of the entries was so high, surprisingly high–it seems the NC crowd is upping its game, rising to the occasion. (I hope I haven’t turned you all into poets!) The Final Five are all just fascinating poems. And Gary Garvin may hedge about his “Spam Villanelle,” but you have to grant him the wit of the initial conception and the follow-through. The poems Gwen Mullins and Anne de Marcken entered are definitely the most “felt” poems, delicately threading emotion, language and thought. Of these two, the judge possibly admires the Anne de Marcken poem the most but he likes the Gwen Mullins poem on personal grounds–he has sons growing up. But then the judge appreciates the brash humour, the pure joy of Julie Larios’s ratty-ness poem. He wanted that one to win, especially because his dog makes a brief appearance (apparently a part of Julie’s inner menagerie, go figure). And finally he decided that Julie’s “At Play” should win because he admired it spareness and clarity of line and thought and its lovely description of the act of thought or writing. And so he thought he was done. But then he read them all again–torn, torn as he was upon the rack of ART!–

The judge and his dog

After an orgy of gin & tonics, a sleepless night, and a long, heartfelt discussion with a blue dog, the judge (anonymous) has rendered a decision. (Remember him in your prayers.) Below, please find the poetic finalists for this year’s contest.

“Spam Villanelle” made the final cut for its outrageous inventiveness. Julie placed two poems in the top five which will no doubt embarrass her, but what can one say? Gwen Mullins, obviously. And Anne de Marcken for the lovely juxtaposition of the inner and outer sea.

There are some wonderful poems in the entry list, all worth reading, especially dg’s (alas, he can never win) and Jacob’s sheepfold poem written after reading Tristan Tzara and Natasha’s cell phone poem and Anna Maria’s snake poem and Julie Marden’s students’ heart-breaking poem. And more. It’s amazing to see the NC crowd pitch in and enjoy writing for writing’s sake, to try unaccustomed forms and genres. In pretty much every villanelle, there was a moment of inspiration, a line with zing, a bit of quirky humour or a thought well-turned. I love watching these contests unfold, watching the minds at play. It’s also lovely to see Sage & Sarah join the fray and the general atmosphere of welcome and support. Five months and it already seems like a special place.