[R. S. Gwynn]

I'm getting ready to leave town for a long weekend and won't be back until Sunday. I'll try to get my final comments up Monday morning. I've found the critiques interesting, especially when someone caught something that slipped by me.

Sam

[R. S. Gwynn]

Never mind. I cancelled a couple of appointments this afternoon and was able to get my comments in before leaving town. Cathy will post them tomorrow as planned.

[Catherine Chandler]

I have received Mr. Gwynn's final comments and his picks for #1, #2, and #3.

I will post them here on Friday morning.

[Catherine Chandler]

Double posted.

[Catherine Chandler]

Well, here it is, Friday morning 5 a.m. (EDT) and time to begin a long holiday week-end and to close the 2011 Eratosphere sonnet bake-off.

The final results are (including Mr. Gwynn's choices as well as my own):

First Place — Sonnet #3, "I Need Men" (49 points)
Second Place — Sonnet #8, "Surabaya" (47 points)
Third Place— Sonnet #1 — "Matriarch" (21 points)

Congratulations!!!!

The other sonnets received the following points:

Sonnet #2 — "The Way It Ended" (7 points)
Sonnet #4 — "Dressing for You" (14 points)
Sonnet #5 — "God May Forgive You" (15 points)
Sonnet #6 — "Differing Visions" (9 points)
Sonnet #7 — "Smitten" (11 points)
Sonnet #9 — "Bird's Eye View" (12 points)
Sonnet #10 — "Stuffed" (13 points)
Sonnet #11 — "green" (3 points)
Sonnet #12 — "Bell Creek Canyon" (6 points)
Sonnet #13 — "The Dead King's Daughter Weds His Conqueror" (6 points)


THE POETS ARE:



Sonnet #1: Thomas S. Kerrigan
Sonnet #2: Gail White
Sonnet #3: Cally Conan-Davies
Sonnet #4: Anna Evans
Sonnet #5: John Whitworth
Sonnet #6: Maryann Corbett
Sonnet #7: Andrew Frisardi
Sonnet #8: Adam Elgar
Sonnet #9: David Anthony
Sonnet #10: John Beaton
Sonnet #11: Bruce McBirney
Sonnet #12: Peter Coghill
Sonnet #13: Michael Cantor


If I may, I would like to list a "baker's dozen" of sonnets that I had a helluva time not including in the thirteen listed above:



HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Rude Sonnet, by Roger Slater
Letter from Lone Pine, by Jan Iwaszkiewicz
On Tom Robert’s “Bailed Up”, by Peter Moltoni
Parting Shots, by Alan Wickes
Chicken, by David Condell
For An Aging Butterfly, by R. Nemo Hill
Pictures at an Extradition, by Philip Quinlan
Run, by Cynthia Neely
My Sister and I, by Laura Heidy
Survivor, by Timothy Murphy
Rahab the Harlot, by Susan McLean
A Change of Tune, by Martin Elster
Sleeping in Tongues, by Ann Drysdale





MR. GWYNN'S CHOICES:


First Place- God Will Forgive You
Second Place - Surabaya
Third Place - I Need Men


ADDITIONAL COMMENTS BY MR. GWYNN:



Sonnet #1 “Matriarch”

As I said before, and others have noted, there are a few blips in diction here that can easily be fixed in a redraft.


Sonnet #2 “The Way It Ended”

This just strikes me as a little too pat. And that first stanza’s metaphor still doesn’t work for me. Line 11 does stand out for praise.


Sonnet #3 “I Need Men”

Despite the fact that it’s an “unruly” sonnet, I rated it high on my list just because of the energy of the diction. It’s a poem one would relish hearing at a reading. I rate it at #3.

Sonnet #4 “Dressing for You”
I didn’t comment on “minimum of guilt” here, which leads to the same questions that others have raised: Whom is she meeting? At first, I thought it was just sneaking out for a little afternoon delight with husband. Now I’m not so sure.

Sonnet #5 “God May Forgive You”
This one most perfectly fills the expectations and demands of a sonnet, and the always tricky Italian form at that. As I said, it has a tone of voice and “sound” that are quite wonderful. Sure, there’s a turn. The 9th line shifts into the rhetorical question mode, as if the auditor has made some protest between octave and sestet (break into two stanzas?) It reminds me of how Donne interacts with his auditor in “The Canonization.” It is rhetorically the cleverest of the poems posted here. Even though I think I know who wrote it, that doesn’t disqualify me for giving it first place.

Sonnet #6 “Differing Visions”

Those “hot pinks sweatpants” seem to be coded metonymy for lower-class. As some have said, color blindness is not exactly a terrible handicap, especially in time of war!


Sonnet #7 “Smitten”

I just found this one a little too uncontrolled for my taste, and I still have trouble with lines 8-10.

Sonnet #8 “Surabaya”

Other than the punctuation problems, this one is the most inventive with the sonnet form. If the author can figure out a more coherent way of making it work on the page it should be easily publishable. I put it at #2.


Sonnet #9 “Bird’s Eye View”

I like this, but it ultimately seems a little forced in its self-deprecating irony. It’s essentially a poem about writing poetry, of which there are probably too many.


Sonnet #10 “Stuffed”

No one commented on “lair,” which by any definition is an interior space. In a rhyming position and at the end of the octave, this would have to come under extra scrutiny.

Sonnet #11 “green”

This just didn’t work for me. If a man is speaking, he’s basically saying, “Gosh, she missed a great chance to get to know me better.”


Sonnet #12 “Bell Creek Canyon”

Those webs seem to have given other readers problems too.


Sonnet #13 “The Dead King’s Daughter Weds His Conqueror”

Now that I know that this one has to lean on another poem (and, sadly, an obscure and better one) I’d have to mark it down a little. It seems like this guy could stand tutoring in a zillion things other than “casuistry.”


YOUR HOST SIGNS OFF:



Well, that’s it for this year’s Eratosphere Sonnet Bake-off!

Once again, a huge thank you to Sam Gwynn for judging and commenting on the finalists’ sonnets. And, as always, a world of thanks to Alex Pepple for Eratosphere.

In case you’re interested in some statistics, I received 68 sonnets, 47 (or 69%) from men and 21 (or 31%) from women and the 13 finalist sonnets happened to be equally represented.

As is usually the case for “screeners”, the choice of thirteen finalists was no easy task. Only after having read the finalists and honorable mentions over a dozen times, was I able to send off the 13 to Sam Gwynn.

I noticed two recurring themes as I read over and over this year’s crop of sonnets, i.e., references to color (or the absence thereof) and gemstones. We saw it in the candle flame in “Matriarch”, the crimson and gold-leaf in “Stuffed” and the (not-so-)golden anniversary in “The Way It Ended”; the (out)bursts of color throughout “Differing Visions”, the explosive “Smitten” in its entirety, the jeweled sandals in “Dressing for You”, the diamonds and emeralds of “green” and “Bell Creek Canyon”, and the elusive, dazzling gem in “Bird’s Eye View”.

There were somber (under)tones as well, as we saw so wonderfully depicted in the dull, colorless boor of “I Need Men”, the surreal landscape of “Surabaya”, and the unstated but understood ashen shade of a burnt-out relationship in “God May Forgive You”.

Michael Cantor’s bow to the mastery of Margaret Griffiths and her poetry (for which her sonnets are models we can all learn from) made this sonnet bake-off even that more special.

But there is someone else who needs to be remembered as we close this sonnet bake-off for 2011 – Mr. Alan Sullivan, affectionately dubbed Eratosphere’s EfH (Editor from Hell), who, it is known, would settle for nothing but perfection when it came to sonnets (of which he was not overly fond, to put it mildly).

With that in mind, below is a 13-line sonnet written by Seree Zohar, who emailed to me that, as she has two sons on the front lines as we speak, she regretted not being able to participate as actively as she would have liked in the sonnet bake-off this year. Seree, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, and thank you for the sonnet in memory of Alan Sullivan.

Finally, thank you, everyone, for your participation in this event. And . . . à la prochain!


Requiem

By Seree Zohar


Gone: and God only knows why.
It’s been divined: your corpus done,
dear friend, my offer’s been declined
though God knows how, in May, I begged:
     Who portioned Adam a thousand years;
     who carved out seventy; who molded
     them as earth’s clay in His hands;
     who, blessing them, conferred them
     upon David, shepherd king and
     poet; and certainly hears Alan
     asking “only four months more...?”
     Who grants us choice, take them from mine!
Who calls, dear spirit-kin? Adieu.

[Philip Quinlan]

Congrats to Cally, a worthy winner.

An "Hon. Mench" will do me (especially in such esteemed company). My sonnet was a bit abnormal, to say the least. Deformed, even.

Staggering, despite my vote of confidence, that Michael attracted so few votes. He aped the voice so well I had him down as a she. Most of my other guesses re: authorship were bang on.

Again, thanks to Cathy and Sam.

Philip

[David Anthony]

Many thanks to Cathy and Sam for running the competition.
Congrats to the winners.
Thanks to those who commented on my poem. Also to those who voted for it: your cheques are in the post.
Best regards,
David

[Shaun J. Russell]

Thanks again, Catherine and Sam!

One of the things I love about the Bakeoff is that the poems are pretty much anonymous, and they receive a different sort of criticism than when the poets' names are known. There are definitely some names on this list that surprise me, impress me and sometimes baffle me.

The one down side is that when the names are ultimately revealed, the human element makes me wish I'd been a bit less blunt in my critiques. So for those of you I gave a rather sharp tongue to -- it's truly nothing personal!

It's a great event, and I look forward to next year.

[Maryann Corbett]

Congratulations to the people's champions, Cally and Adam and Tom! and to John, Mr. Gwynn's top choice.

(I haven't seen Adam around much lately; Adam, come out and take a bow!)

And yes indeed, thanks again to Cathy and to Sam--and to Tim for originating our sonnet bakeoffs.

[Gail White]

I always look forward to the moment when the secrets of all hearts are revealed and we know who's who. I add my congratulations to our winners and my thanks to the judges - and a special thanks to Cathy for adding that second list of 13 - I can see what a problem the choice presented! (Wish we could put the whole 26 in a chapbook). Again,
congratulations to all.