[Lance Levens]

1. Emergences
2. Coming to Terms
3. Tube Song

The choices surpassed my ability to discriminate. Ausgezeichnet!

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Susan McLean]

Hurrah for the winners in both lists! It was great to catch up on work that I had seen earlier, but particularly the poems I had missed.

Susan

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks so much, John, for bearing with the record keeping, red tape, fuss, and minor frustrations attendant on this event and giving us your thoughts and choices. May it all be for the good of the Sphere!

I hope everybody who had a poem posted will let us know which is whose. "Emergences," I confess, is mine, first published in the infamous Shit Creek Review last February.

But duh. I should probably put this note in the poem's thread. Congratulations to all on both lists of winners!

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Oh no - I can't believe I missed the vote! I didn't realise it was over so soon!

Thank you, John, and congratulations to all the ornaments John selected to decorate our Sphere this season!!

(if I hadn't been tardy, I would have voted for Muhammad and The Tube and Coming To Terms)

Cally

[Charlotte Innes]

Congrats on first place, Maryann! That was my top choice too--a gorgeous poem. And no, I didn't realize it was you!

In fact, the top three were also my choices. But, yes, all the poems posted by John were really good--it was hard to choose.

Congrats to all! And thank you, John. It's tough being a judge.

Charlotte

[John Whitworth]

Well done, Maryann. You are a poet and a scholar! Now, the author of Coming to Terms. Come out, come out, whoever you are.

[Rick Mullin]

I will admit not only to writing "...wednesday" but also to voting for it (but not as number 1).

I was right about number 1, at least.

John, thanks for doing the heavy lifting.

Rick

[Ann Drysdale]

I've searched the threads and I'm blowed if I can see my votes. I did a list and thought I'd posted it, but since the poems I chose were the three that figured on the final list, it makes no never-mind.

I too, put Emergences at number one - it chimes with my lugubrious worldview! And, yes, John has outed me for the tubes. That was me waxing metaphysical.

Thanks, John - Happy Christmas everyone!

[Catherine Chandler]

I wrote "Coming to Terms". But I thought you all knew that, since Maryann gave it away in her wry comment the day it was posted.

Thanks, John for listing it in your top three. I'm happy it made your list of personal favorites.

Thanks to those who voted for this "woman's poem" (though the tragedy of a miscarriage is also experienced by the father), in spite of its being a sonnet .

Congratulations to all the finalists as well as all those who participated, in effect making the event "happen"; to the readers and those who chose to comment; and above all, to John for all the hard work that hosting an Eratosphere event entails.

Best wishes for the holidays!