[macambrose]

I’ve never posted here before, but have enjoyed occasionally visiting the site to see how things were progressing with the “bake off”. Some good sonnets, and thanks to Tim and Rhina: to Tim for his enthusiastic presentation of the work here, and for including my sonnet, and to Rhina for her insightful commentaries/critiques of the poems. I have posted no response to individual poems for the usual reason, lack of time; besides, I do enough responding to poems submitted for The Dark Horse as it is. But for the record, and among a strong field, my own favourites here are ‘Hardy’; ‘Phenonomenon’; ‘Unposted’; ‘Millay’s Child’; ‘Charlegmagne’s Vision’; and ‘Aftershocks’. I enjoyed Tim’s plain speaking in a poem I knew; conversely, Deborah Warren has a remarkable ability to harness exuberant language in a strict form. She is also unusual among writers in form in dealing with what one might call “visionary realities” one would associate with a Whitman or a Jeffers; in this respect she reminds me a little of Hopkins, without his peculiarity. Her work has an arresting Anglo-saxon energy married to a formal grace. Robert Crawford’s poem I enjoyed for its documentary veracity, and nice touches such as the puns on “lines” and “affairs” (and was interested in the echo of “Out, Out--” at the end); Paul Lake’s, for its linguistic density which in other hands might have become clotted but here is almost ironically gorgeous; ‘Hard Winter’ I liked for its social empathy, a quality not too common among New Formalists; ‘Forty-Eight’ -- which I published in The Dark Horse -- for its humour, wry affection, and the surprise of that “dropped” drift.
Taking up Bruce McBirney’s suggestion I’m posting a bit of background to ‘Singing Bird’ on its thread.

Gerry Cambridge

[R. S. Gwynn]

Rhina, despite her identifying Gerry Cambridge as a Texan, has done her usual fine job of commenting on the sonnets. So thank you, Rhina, and thank you, Tim, for taking the time to post the sonnets and critique them. It's a fascinating group, and I agree with the judging. I got a good suggestion on fixing a troublesome line in my own (unpublished) one.


[This message has been edited by R. S. Gwynn (edited March 28, 2003).]

[Shekhar Aiyar]

Tim,

Although I haven't commented on the poems in the sonnet bake-off, I have greatly enjoyed reading the poems and the comments. The quality of work is intimidatingly good!

I think the anonymity of the author should be maintained - not only does it add spice to the exercise, it also does away entirely with the bias that must necessarily prevail if identities were to be known.

Shekhar

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

I'm overjoyed that so many visitors to the site have found this thread useful and fun. Sam, can you blame me? It's not my fault that you and Gerry have so much in common, especially the tone! I was almost sure this sonnet was yours!

My thanks to those who have said kind things about my judging. I've done few things lately that I've enjoyed so much. My other recent major project has been making slipcovers, and believe me, this is infinitely better.

Now, as to anonymity for the next Bake-Off, with all due respect to Tim, I still think anonymity is a good idea, for precisely the reasons cited by Julie and kday1 and others: people really are in awe of poets they already know they admire, and hesitate to find the nits in their poems. But I'm grateful when some good, truthful, intelligent reader finds the nits in mine--there always are some--even in published work, and even if I can't figure out how to get rid of them. The nits, that is, not the poet friends.

There is also, as Julie says, strong hesitation about commenting on poems that have already appeared somewhere, on the grounds that they must already be perfect. I won't even go there. Of course, there's no avoiding the use of poems that have been workshopped or read at poetry readings, unless you accept only poems composed by anchorites who live in caves in the desert. And even then...

[Catherine Tufariello]

I was away and without internet access for most of the bake-off. Having returned and read the other sonnets, I’m both pleased and very flattered that Rhina should have ranked mine in the second tier. They’re an extraordinary group of poems, even better overall, I think, than last year’s batch. I’m grateful for Rhina’s willingness to undertake the difficult job of judging them and for her thoughtful and generous comments on all the poems, and I’m sorry to have missed most of the discussions. Thank you too, Tim, for organizing the bake-off and making the selections, and for inviting me to participate.

I enjoyed guessing the authors of the first few sonnets posted, but I agree with those who have pointed out that anonymity is undercut somewhat by the use of published poems. It might be fun, next year, to see the recent, unpublished sonnets of fellow 'Spherians. Either way, I look forward to next year's bake-off and hope to be able to participate in it much more fully.

[Julie Steiner]

I doubt that the Bake-Off would be the right forum for this, but wouldn't it be outrageous fun if people were willing to write on the same theme, or to include the same elements somehow--e.g., if everyone had to slip a grasshopper and a cricket into the poem somehow, a la the recent Keats/Hunt topic on the "Musing on Mastery" board?

Or, if everyone had to parody the style of another well-known poet?

Hmmm, I could splat a Kelly-green grasshopper on the cracked windshield of a good-looking farmboy's pickup truck, while decrepit, arcane farm machinery evokes singing crickets...

Julie Stoner

[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited March 29, 2003).]