[Tracey Gratch]

This one is in the top three for me.

This year's selections definitely finished strong.

How about a couple honorable mentions, just for fun?

Thanks to the DG for this year's fine selections and insightful commentary.

[L.M. Price]

Though I could wish for a more specific scene, I think the genericness (is that a word?) of the description is meant to tie into the 'everywhere/anywhere' of later on. Anywhere is the same as anywhere else without 'you' there.
My nits are 'or to experience'. It seems an awkward way of stating the idea.
And 'this land from everything', which isn't true - there is trash and, presumably, seagulls, dogs and joggers, and, unless it's a very small island, more land behind the speaker. But I can understand that the feeling is that of being cut off from everything, whether literally accurate or not.

[Wes Hyde]

For me this is #1.

[Spindleshanks]

Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell

The volta is in the middle of L10.

I see that as less a turn, more a protraction in the development of the plot. If there is a volta, it lies in L4, with the switch from a routine postcard image to the view as seen through the N's bleak eyes. Which is rather early for the volta, but may be seen as acceptable given the wide divergence from the norm seen already in the DG's choices.

John, while the volta may not be obligatory, it's a reasonable expectation in a sonnet exercise, given its recognition as an identifying feature in the form; and i doubt you can justify the claim that Shakespeare 'managed very well without a volta in many sonnets.' While it's true that few of his sonnets featured the turn according to the Italian tradition, i.e. following the octave, it almost invariably occurred with the couplet, setting it as the default practice with the so-called Shakespearean.

Getting back to the poem, I suspect a typo with "impassibility" which perhaps should be "impassability." I find this area of the poem difficult to parse, but it is pretty.

Still mulling, but leaning toward other choices at present.

[Rick Mullin]

I am not as enthusiastic about this one. Titled Postcard it begins with a straightforward description of the picture. It resolves on a not-particularly-unexpected sentiment--almost a cliché in the world of postcarding.

My favorite line is the same as Gail's about the water. Unlike Gail, I try not to think when I read, but this one had me also a bit distracted trying to place the place... much as I tried not to.

The line I like least is the one made up of two big gum-chewy words.

Often, and there is absolutely nothing to this, a lack of uniformity of line lengths in a sonnet indicates a kind of artistic short fall.

Rick

[David Danoff]

With "miles of waves and storms sequestering / me from you, this land from everything," I take it the location is someplace isolated, probably an island. Maybe Australia. A place where one might feel that everything else in the world is so far away.

Although I suppose that may just be the conceit: without the beloved, everything is far away, no matter where one is; and wherever the beloved is, there is everything.

I like it.

[Christy Reno]

At first I didn't like it. It took me a few reads to appreciate it. After reading it a few times, I'd like to mention a few things about why I disagree with Ross about the language the poet uses.

"largely devoid of ships" On first read this one glared at me as well. I didn't like the sound of it. The "ships" and then a break after it was very jarring. I didn't know why it had been selected. After I read it in its entirety, I found out that whoever the narrator might miss is/was a romantic relationship. Why the narrator is there, we don't know exactly. Perhaps it was a tense situation at home.

"is and isn’t what I want (make up your mind)" I think it was the DG who said it best.
"seagulls, dogs, and joggers" Pedestrian, perhaps, but the mostly short vowels, G, and S sounds work together for the tone of the poem.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Beautiful.