The winners here were quite clear cut. I gave three points for a first choice, two for a second choice and one for a third choice. They were
1. Emergences (34 points)
2. Muhammad Ali (22 points)
3. Coming to Terms (20 points)
With an Honourable Mention for the Song of Tubes (14 points).
For what it's worth my top three were:
1. Preaching Grove
2. Coming to Terms
3. Song of Tubes
I chose Preaching Grove because it seemed to me the most distinguished poem, Coming to Terms because it touched me deeply and The Song of Tubes because it made me laugh. I too thought the general standard of the poems was agreeably high, but what else would I expect of a competition among Sphereans.
There were twenty-one entrants, over sixty poems. I made a private rule that I would not pick any poet twice, so the final ten came from ten different poets. Now have to confess that, due to my utter hopelessness with the mechanics of this (an hour of futile messing about) I cannot access the original postings. So I ask the writers of the winning poems to come clean and tell us who they were. I can remember that Michael Cantor wrote Muhammad Ali, Ann Drysdale wrote the Song of Tubes and
Tim wrote Preaching Grove.
I am agog to know who had first and third places. But in truth, I should like totake a Lewis Carroll approach here. You should all get prizes. Except that there aren't any prizes but the notional bay leaves.
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