Apr 26, 2008

And the Winner Is...

Anna won this week's Poetry Book contest for National Poetry Month. She received a volume of Yeats poems and selected plays.

I also want to alert you to the third contest for the month, again a volume of poetry. So it looks like this will be the last chance to win a volume of poetry for National Poetry Month. You'll have to check out these National Poetry Month links to find out their secrets.

Those interested in the contest, please either post an original poem or your favorite poem in the comments by May 2, and I will post the winner on May 3.

Unfortunately, my aunt and Anna will not allowed to grace us with their witty poems this time around since they both already won a poetry volume. Even if you entered the last contest, please do enter again, with a different poem. Let's Celebrate National Poetry Month.

8 comments:

Anna said...

Thanks again for the Yeats!

I know I can't enter again, but here's another piece of poetry:


Fire Pages

I will read ashes for you, if you ask me.
I will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes
And out of the red and black tongues and stripes,
I will tell how fire comes
And how fire runs far as the sea.

Carl Sandburg

Serena said...

OOOOOOO

I like this poem. I have not read much of Sandburg, if anything.

Good find!

Ana S. said...

I've never read Sandburg either, but I like the poem Anna posted.

Here's one of my favourites:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-- e. e. cummings

Serena said...

Great poem choice. Thanks Nymeth for entering.

mariel said...

Hi! I discovered your blog through Nymeth and Weekly Geeks, and thought I would share this beautiful poem, one of my favourites that I discovered a few years ago, and converted me to the world of Billy Collins.


The Country
Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time-

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

Serena said...

Mariel and Nymeth thanks for contributing your poems for the contest. I will be drawing names on May 3.

I've read some of Billy Collins' work, but not that particular poem. I enjoyed it. And E.E. Cummings is another of my favorite poets of all time. What a great choice Nymeth.

Thanks for stopping by. I plan on searching through Weekly Geeks sometime today and checking out other blogs as well, and posting my progress on the first challenge.

Suey said...

Here's another one I've always liked:

Farewell to barn and stack and tree
by A. E. Housman

'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.

'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,
By now the blood is dried;
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still
And my knife is in his side.

'My mother thinks us long away;
'Tis time the field were mown.
She had two sons at rising day,
To-night she'll be alone.

'And here's a bloody hand to shake,
And oh, man, here's good-bye;
We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,
My bloody hands and I.

'I wish you strength to bring you pride,
And a love to keep you clean,
And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,
At racing on the green.

'Long for me the rick will wait,
And long will wait the fold,
And long will stand the empty plate,
And dinner will be cold.'

Serena said...

I remember this poem, but could never remember who wrote it. Now, I have a record of who wrote it.

Thanks again for entering Suey. I will be drawing names on Sat.