First let me thank Dick Davis, whose insights into the sonnet are often thought "but ne’er so well express’d.” What a joy it has been, Dick, for all us aspirants to this ancient art to have you among us! I hope you’ll look in for a couple of days in case there any general questions on this inexhaustible form, and I hope like our other Guest Lariats, you’ll revisit us often. Let me take this opportunity to beseech you to adjudicate the second Sonnet Bake-off next May!

Second let me thank all the contestants, those whose sonnets were discussed and the many whose were not. What a glorious assemblage! Story poems, joke poems, Biblical and Classical poems, grammatical poems. A very round survey of the many uses to which our great fourteener is being put these days. Special thanks to David and Sam, who yielded from their loaded decks a couple of jokers to lighten the burden of this Bake-off. Congratulations to the women who won and the men who came close. Gentlemen, go storm the castle of sonnetry for a year and see if you can't leave the ladies wailing on the ramparts in envy!

Thanks too to all who offered their sensitive contributions on the poems and on the process. As organizer, I am particularly indebted to Bruce McBirney and epigone for their generous observations.

We inaugurated the Lariat Board last summer, and your host thinks this is the best thing we’ve done. I think we’ll continue to do this with our future Lariats. In June, Alan and I will haul a laptop up to the Berkshires, where Dick Wilbur still uses a 1949 Underwood typewriter. Deborah Warren had the very good notion that we should charge a submission fee for these affairs to support Alex. Dick’s lariatship will only last two days, so we shall probably only have time to comment on four to six poems. Please email me your entries at timmurphyis@att.net, (no sonnets, please!) and send $25.00 to Alex for each poem submitted. This is not nearly such a crapshoot as a first book contest, and it’s your chance to have a poem critiqued by the Master.

And my thanks to Alex, who has brought together from all round the globe so gifted a bunch of poetry practitioners. We jump all over each other on the Metrical Boards, but I know it’s been a real eye-opener to Dick to see the talent assembled under this virtual roof.

Finally, here are the books by Dick Davis I really can’t be without: Devices and Desires, and Touchwood, Anvil Press, order from Amazon UK. Borrowed Ware, his uncannily translated anthology of Persian Epigrams, same source. The Conference of the Birds, his book-length translation of Farid ud-Din Attar’s great verse fable, Penguin, available anywhere. And the new book, Belonging, Ohio University/Swallow Press. Our guests at this board are the best writers of our time, and it behooves us to study their books with infinite attention.

I've closed the ballot thread to give Dick the last word, but we welcome all of your comments on this retrospective thread.

Many, many thanks to Dick.
Hope to see you soon at West Chester!

Many thanks to Tim, Dick and everyone who participated here in the past few weeks--this has been a highlight (perhaps THE highlight) of my time at Eratosphere. Nicely done!!!

Though I feel a bit like one who farted at the tea for having mentioned a few nits, I too much appreciated the quality of both the sonnets and the commentaries, and would like to add my thanks to all those responsible, especially Tim, Dick Davis, and the sonneteers. Cheers to all.

Jan

Every now and then something happens that reminds me what drew me to poetry in the first place, and these days that something often happens on Eratosphere -- but this "something" has been a whole congress of wonders. My thanks to Tim for coming up with the idea and to Dick for executing it so well.
RPW

Warm thanks to you, Dick - and thanks, as well, to Tim, for putting this exercise in place, and to the poets for their skill and imagination. An excellent venture all round!

Clive Watkins

PS: Now perhaps someone can explain to me what a "bake-off" is…..

Dear Clive, General Mills has a totemic marketing maven named Betty Crocker, and for seventy years Betty has been baking up a storm in ad campaigns. For about fifty years General Mills has sponsored the Betty Crocker Bake-off in which the worthiest pastry magicians competed to see who had the best recipe and perfect execution. Their medium is flour, butter, fruit and sugar, and ours is delicious words.

But not only delicious, although that's crucial: nutritious too, to the mind and heart, senses and memory. Thank you, Dick Davis, for your particular words, for teaching us so much, for wearing your learning with such light grace and sharing it with such generosity. Like Tim, I hope you'll be back soon and often!

Thank you, Tim, for coming up with this glorious "bake-off" idea, and of course thank you, Alex, for all you've done for poetry. You've made us all winners.

It has been a great pleasure to read so many excellent sonnets and such insightful responses to them. If I have reservations about this bake-off at all, they are about setting this comparison up as a competition. As others have said, given the high quality of the offerings, any ranking will say more about personal taste than about anything else. Poetry is, like everything else, a kind of "survival of the fittest" but I lament the overall effect that contests have had on the poetry world. And I value the cooperation and collegiality that Eratosphere promotes. The idea of turning the comparison into something along the lines of other poetry contests, with fees to enter, may be effective as a fundraiser, but I wonder if the resulting competitiveness would not have a negative effect. I have been very impressed with the courtesy and positive attitudes of the respondents this time around and would hate to see that compromised.

Thanks for a very informative visit, Dick. As we say in Texas, "Y'all come back, ya hear?" You are a full-fledged Eratospherian now, so I hope you will drop in often.

I enjoyed the bake-off and hope that none of our "contestants," all of whom have probably cut their teeth on real competitions, minded the friendly mock contest. All the entries were well written and worthy of the thread.

Carol