L4 isn't quite idiomatic. If I may be racially crude for a moment to explain my point, one might refer to "a black", or to a "coal black negro", but would it be natural to say "a coal black"? For the same reason, "... that gangly, felt-hat black whose... " doesn't sound quite right. I had to read the sentence a couple times before it clicked that "black" was being used as a noun.

I'm not sure I understand the title. Is it to underscore that the black man hunts for food what the white speaker hunts for sport? Or is it intended to suggest "food for thought?"

Other than that, I like this one a lot.

Definitely the best so far. I agree with Brian's critique of the "felt-hat black" image.

I agree that the title doesn't do much for this one, and if it is meant to suggest that the better hunter here hunts for food while the narrator hunts for sport, as Brian suggests, I'm afraid I was too dense to pick that up on the first couple of reads.

Anyway, I love this one.

Yes, a powerful sonnet and a very acute analysis by Catherine. Just one grammatical curiosity as regards Catherine's comment: surely "laid" is the correct form for the past tense of the transitive verb, rather than a colloquial form? Or is this another Brit/US difference?

Damn good. I just wonder with the others why it's appearing in a bakeoff for a second time. Maybe a book-keeping mistake by the author (whom I don't need to guess)?

Chris

Great descriptive writing.

Though I do question the ethics of re-run.

Nemo

"Skin and stew" are simply awesome there at the end.

The one thing that doesn't sit well with me is the same thing Brian mentioned: the word "black" to mean "black man." Can't say I've heard this in regular parlance; "blacks," yes, in the plural, but not the singular; "black," yes, as an adjective, but not a noun. Maybe it happens in redneck country, but why would a cultivated poet want to sound that tone? (And who would say "that white"?)

I strongly suggest adding an extra sonnet to this bake-off to compensate for this one's having appeared twice. If indeed it has; I remember it from a different thread too.

I strongly support Kate's suggestion.
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So do I. I do think this is the best sonnet of the first four. (I haven't yet read the later threads.)

To respond to the suggestion made by Kate, and seconded by others: I will post thirteen sonnets, instead of twelve, and there will be three new "medalists" at the end as well. I understand from Susan that the reappearance of this sonnet was indeed the result of a bookkeeping error or failure in memory on the poet's part, as Chris guessed. I'm happy to have had the chance to comment on such a fine poem, but no one else will lose a finalist slot because I did so.

Carry on! I'm enjoying these discussions very much. And Gregory, as long as I'm here: you're absolutely right that my grammar analysis was faulty, and much as I would like to attribute the error to national differences, I'm afraid I must take the blame. I treated the verb as if the hunter were lying down in the brush, instead of laying down his sack. My bad! (Do they say that in the U.K.?)

I remember this poem. I have been thinking about it and I will bet some stale doughnuts that the author has revised it to deal with some of the critical points from before.

It is not exactly the poem that I remember from an earlier bake-off, it is revised and improved.

But I have been wrong before. Once.