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The Secret (Free verse) by ecargo How it lies, heavy
in my belly and breast:
no pearl, but a stone,
no open hand, but a fist,
mine to carry,
mine alone,
to bury with the rest.
Up the ladder:
Wars Between Held Breath's
Down the ladder:
Pilgrim
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 9.5
Posted: September 18, 2006 9:03 AM PDT; Last modified: September 18, 2006 9:03 AM PDTWeighted score: 5.536413 Overall Rank: 2621 Comments:
This is a miscarriage poem, right? You've got an odd timing in here - I can make most of it fit, but the first line throws it somewhat. With a slow reading it fits, but I found it still a little awkward.
Are you entering the WWA?
Ya know, it's not. It's just an incredibly heavy-handed metaphor for carrying a secret, your own or, sometimes worse, someone else's, that weighs in your gut and plagues you. The miscarriage imagery was just a metaphor, but I think I may have overdone it--I knew what the obvious connotation would be. Thanks for the comment, Ranger! re: WWA (sounds like some WWII women's auxilary unit), I might, depending on what I can muster up. ;-) As I said, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and if nothing else, it'll let me do an inventory of my body of work, right? ("Body of work" makes it sound so imposing or impressive or something. It's not. ;-))
Ah, I thought you were being specific - a secret miscarriage. I was quite concerned by the last line (on this reading) though - I mean, how many dead babies had been buried?! And were they all yours or were there - God forbid - prawnes inamongst the corpses too?
Question: was there a prawn unit in the war, or indeed, in any war?
You should enter it (assuming the entry fee isn't something like a thousand dollars) - particularly if you can include Selkie in your collection. Nothing ventured, nothing gained indeed - and you might well surprise yourself :-) Do you write fiction other than poetry?
You would never hurt a prawne? I am glad to hear it; seafood cocktail of any form always makes me weep.
General Thumble P. Critchford tells me that during WWII the prawnatroopers of the first regiment (the 'Pink Berets') distinguished themselves during a daring raid on the main bratwurst factory in Gelsenkirchen; supplies to the front line were crippled. Those prawnes who could adapt to swift freshwater managed to make good their escape along the Rhine and were rescued in Arnhem. Yep, we still love our pounds sterling - despite Big Tony's efforts at demolishing the English heritage we're still fighting tooth and nail against joining Europe entirely. I'm pretty bad at conversion rates, but £13-£15 sounds about right. Actually, I expected it to be more to enter a competition like this - sort of the £25 mark. I'd love to read some of your stories - I never watched Howl's Moving Castle (and I cannot justify not watching it :-( ) but I absolutely loved Spirited Away - makes top five in my all-time favourites, although I'm not a movie buff. I'm guessing you enjoyed Lord of the Rings too? Muchos kudos for actually being able to write a full-length (even short) novel; I don't have the attention span. What I've written in the past tended to turn into Pratchett-esque punfests, although I do mean to one day start that gothic story my suicide poem was based on. Time has been at a premium recently, of course, but I'm about to go back to uni for my last year so I'll have more hours during the week for writing. Actually, the last couple of days have been spent teaching myself metre (after our last convo on the ranker) so now I can talk about iambs, spondees, trochees and pyrrhic substitutions. One day I'll be able to use them too ;-) Oh - and I'm starting the Poemranker Tales, hopefully to have the intro posted soon and get other people to write sections of it. Will it work or is it doomed from the start...?
Hmmm . . . weep like the Walrus weeps, you mean? http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walru
Ah, those dashing prawnes prawnatroopers of the last Great War, with their jellyfish parachutes and swordfish bayonets. Poemranker Tales (maybe it should be Follies?). ;-D I always did (mostly) like the self-referential stuff, when it was done well. Be interesting to see what you come up with!
Heh, classic Carroll. You know, I've got an ancient calendar kicking around somewhere which has a bunch of illustrations from various fantasy stories/poems - The Walrus and the Carpenter among them.
The Tales are going to be epic, if ever I have the willpower to keep writing them. There's going to have to be a list of all the characters so I don't forget them; Dark Angel, horus8, god'swife, zzinnia (do you ever see her anymore?), p&k etc. etc. etc., nentwined and rockmage obviously and, to cap it all....... ...SETTLE
Legendary - enjoy the kayaking!
--Tell Zz that I have to use 'Zzinia' for the Tales; I'm struggling to find acceptable rhymes for '<~>'
hi Ranger!
Nice to see you around again :-)
But seriously, I can't think of a more poetically unforgiving username than <~> in the entire world. Damn these keyboards and their vast multitude of special characters, damn them to the deepest bow'ls of Microsoft.
ti's a tilde, so you you near rhyme "will do" or something close to that....
Surely that's cheating?
well, it is my moniker, and i give you permission to cheat on this one...
Huzzah for new liberties! In that case, I guess I'd better write the thing now...
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Walt Whitman award open for submissions. Submissions are accepted each year from September 15 to November 15. (Only open to American poets--sorry, across-the-pond denizens.)
The Walt Whitman Award brings first-book publication, a cash prize of $5,000, and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center to an American who has never before published a book of poetry. The winning manuscript, chosen by an eminent poet, is published by Louisiana State University Press. The Academy purchases copies of the book for distribution to its members.
The award was established in 1975 to encourage the work of emerging poets and to enable the publication of a poet's first book. Submissions are accepted each year from September 15 to November 15, and an entry form and fee are required. The judge for the 2007 award will be August Kleinzahler.
To obtain the guidelines and entry form for the Walt Whitman contest, please follow the link below or send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the Academy in August. Winners are announced in May.
Guidelines and Entry Form: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/121
Nothing ventured . . .