[Rose Kelleher]

My top pick is Lady Pu-Abi for its gorgeousness and relevance. Close seconds are Visiting the Surgical Ward for its poignancy and wordplay, and Limits of Art for its down-to-earth-ness.

p.s. Thanks, Tim!


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited December 07, 2004).]

[Janet Kenny]

I'm torn. I can't cram my favourites into four places nor put those I've chosen (with difficulty) in order of preference.

My four poems are:
Easter Morning

Rays at Cape Hatteras

Riderless Horses

To the Dead of Winter

There are others that are only not there because of the need to choose.

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 08, 2004).]

[Robt_Ward]

One hestitates to rank the poems because there are so many ways to do it. The ones that please me the most, speak directly to me? The best-crafted? The most "serious", the ones with a lasting message of some sort about the human condition? etc etc.

Within the context of Eratosphere, the social context, I'd have to give the nod to Lady Pu-Abi and the Flying Rays, because these are wonderful poems by two authors who've worked very hard to reach this level.

My personal favorite of the poems-not-mine is the Flying Rays. I'm a waterman myself, spent a lifetime on it, and this poem rings very true to me.

A close tie for personal-resonance second-place honors in my book between Lord N and the Riderless Horses, both poems that address closely our relationship to mortality, something that is much on my mind of late.

For the sheer sound of the thing, the bravura performance award to John Beaton's Dead of Winter.

Uplifting spiritual performance of the year goes to Jody Bottum's Easter Morning, hands down.

Unflinching self-appraisal deserves a prize, and Marion Shore gets it for Harvard Square. Carol Taylor runs a close second there with All I Need to Know, assuming we can identify the poet with her persona in the poem.

If there's a prize for breaking the mold and producing work outside the poet's lifelong pattern, I think I have a good shot at that with Stuck Life, which is about as far from my usual "confessional", inner-looking poetry as I think I'm ever likely to go.

All in all, a terrific event and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

(robt)

[Chris Childers]

1. Rays at Cape Hatteras
2. Easter Morning
3. The Nature of This
4. Lady Pu-Abi

Chris

[grasshopper]

I find it difficult to choose, but here are the 3 (in no particular order) that rung my particular bell:
Talking to Lord Newborough,
Rays at Cape Hatteras,
For Claire.

Regards, Maz

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

What a great list of poets, and how glad I am that the choices made by others are all over that list! That gives me leave to say, again, how very tough these choices were, and how much soul-searching went into the choosing! The words most often used in my thoughts for several days now have been "Yes, but..."

I should have guessed that #1 and my HM choice were by David Anthony and Jim Hayes, because I'm a fan of both guys and have seen a fair amount of their work. I've read poems by Julie and Maz before, always with pleasure, but only a few: I hope to read many more in the months and years to come!

And now I can say that I knew the three beauties by Tim, Jody and Mike--we all did--and love all three. And how I kept going back to "Lady Pu-Abi" ("Yes, but...!") and to those delightful flying rays, and the sad woman saying goodbye (at the airport?) with "something in her eye," and to the smart Bostonian crossing Harvard Square, latte in hand, and so many others! These poems have become part of my experience, which is exactly what good poems are supposed to do. Thank you all for them, and for trusting me to say something useful about them.

[wendy v]

I hope Tim won't mind a correction regarding Rose's work: Rose has been producing excellent poems and showing remarkable range for quite some while now -- she's just posted many of her poems to the Met Board, modest creature that she is. Rays is a spectacular poem, but I hope nobody will throw various fruits and vegetables if I say she's written even better.

[David Anthony]

I agree with Wendy.
Hatteras is fine work, but Rose has written quite a number of outstanding poems.
David

[Tim Murphy]

My ignorance is compounded by my only frequenting TDE.