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.