[Tim Murphy]

I shall have to puzzle over Clive's comments on lineation for the rest of the span left me. And give thanks for his friendship. One of the marvelous things about Alex' creation is its bringing writers together, even across the sea. Frankly, I prefer Clive's breaking of the Whitman lines in half, but then, I dislike Whitman. Weigh in on the thread, comrades. My purpose today is to announce Sonnet Bake-off, Year Three.

The EfH and I have repeatedly expressed our view that too many sonnets are written. To my shock, I just realized that 6 of the 42 poems in my new manuscript total 14 lines. As Patsy says in ABFAB, "you can never have enough hats or gloves." I'll add, "you can never have enough sonnets."

Sam Gwynn is our third adjudicator of what for me is sheer fun. I put him with Rhina and Dick Davis, our previous judges, not on his volume of sonnets written, but on their excellence. I propose to change this year's contest, not that it is any contest. Though I shall screen out inferior work, Sam will choose the poems on which he comments. The postings will be "blind," no indication of author until Sam has commented.

Please email your submissions to timmurphyis@att.net. We'll get rolling around April 1. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

yr lariat, Timothy

[Hugh Clary]

> ... too many sonnets are written.

Scorn not the sonnet, though its strength be sapped,
Nor say malignant its inventor blundered;
The corpse that here in fourteen lines is wrapped
Had otherwise been covered with a hundred.
-- R.H. Loines

[Robt_Ward]

LOL, Hugh! That's terrific! Love the syntax almost as much as the thouight, jejeje™

(robt)

[Rose Kelleher]

Funny sonnets, or any kind?

Limit one per customer?

[Tim Murphy]

Any kind, Rose. One per customer. You might wish to go back into the annals of the Lariat board and see the work posted a year and two years ago.

[Roger Slater]

WHY I'M NOT ENTERING THIS YEAR'S BAKE-OFF

I thought I'd write a sonnet for the bake-off.
Since Gwynn's the judge, I figured I'd try wit,
Perhaps a Wendy-Cope-cum-Sam-Gwynn take-off?
"My agent says my husband is a twit"?
Or maybe I'd be scandalous, like Parker?
Or use a lot of far-fetched rhymes, like Nash?
Or try for something Suessian, but darker?
"These eggs are green, goddamit! Taste like trash!"

But things proved harder than I bargained for.
My sonnet seemed contrived no matter how
I tried to mimick poets I adore.
These clumsy lines are all I have for now,
But next year I will rise above such scrawlings.
I think I'll dash off something a la Stallings.



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited March 18, 2004).]

[Tim Murphy]

Bob, this is pretty marvelous for a toss-off. We shall certainly have some funny sonnets in this year's parade, but I hope this one won't make the cut. I only hope that because the cut will be determined by the rising tide? Does that make sense? No.

Return to Clive's thread, Ambition or the Lack Thereof. No, that was Tim's thread, initiated in response to Clive's complaint. I suspect that the sonnet, rightly conceived, is our most extraordinary stanza. Within its fourteen lines, the permutations are infinite. A newbie here, David Anthony, once asserted that it was the only form worth writing. Wrong-headed as that seems to a man who tries to nonce every thing he writes, I judged that to be an assertion worth flaunting!

Dean Donne referred to "narrow rooms." The purpose of this exercise is to showcase what the all of us can do within those confines. Send me your rich, your rare, your silken tents supported by the air. Timothy

[Rose Kelleher]

(Having read the winning entries)

On second thought, maybe I'll just write another chicken poem...

[Janet Kenny]

Tim
How many metres of silk?

Janet

[Tim Murphy]

I just received the winner. Fortunately, I don't vote. Come on, people, send me your meters of silk.