Poetry Friday: The Games Have Begun!!

Round One of the 2nd Annual March Madness competition (a thrilling, maddening, intoxicating poetry-under-pressure playoff) is underway at Ed DeCaria's THINK KID THINK. How he manages to organize and keep up with the avalanche of  work involved (this first round = 64 poems from 64 poets!) just boggles the mind. He designed the competition, posted the brackets, posted overviews and a calendar, assigned us all our Round One words (no, we can't just write anything we want - we have assigned words, with different levels of difficulty.) Tomorrow? New words, new poems.  For a good explanation of how it all works, click here. Ed, thanks!

What makes it a competition?  Readers get to vote for their favorites! (Don't hesitate - voting ends on a staggered basis throughout the day today.)

Here's my approach to the contest: If, as a poet, you enter the Madness feeling anxious, terrified and/or cutthroat, it's probably not too pleasant. But if you enter for the delight of it (it's amazing to see what people can come up with quickly) then it's a lot of fun. 64 poets at play!

My assigned word for Round One? "Diphthongs."

English Vowel Sounds (those with two separate symbols in one box are gliding vowels, aka diphthongs.....as in #20 - "how")

Yes, DIPHTHONGS! (I thought that was bad - someone got "anthropomorphization" and someone else got "necrotize.") My word turned out to be the perfect challenge - I had a ball coming up with something kids might enjoy (and I might, too.) Bottom line: Win or lose, I have a new poem I like.

Click here to read it (I've also pasted it in below) and also read its rival, a poem by Victoria Warneck (assigned word: "dazzle) yesterday.

And click here for "the scoreboard" - a list of links to all Round One pairings, divided into Flight One (vote by early afternoon today - Friday) and Flight Two (vote by 7:30 tonight.) You can vote easily at each link.

I know that by the time you read this, there might not be much time left to vote. But if you miss the Round One deadlines you can still vote in all the other rounds - they'll come fast and furious in the next few days (which is why we say "poetry under pressure"!) so be looking for new scoreboards and poems posted overnight at Think Kid Think.

Many regular Poetry Friday poets are part of the competition - check out poems by Laura Purdie Salas, Renee LaTulippe, Mary Lee Hahn (whose poem sent me down for the count in Round Three of last year's Madness!), April Halprin Wayland, Amy Vanderwater, Heidi Mordhorst, Robyn Hood Black, Greg Pincus, Katya Szaja, Linda Baie, Laura Shovan, susan Taylor Brown and Charles Waters - all of them have poems up in the First Round. Special shout-outs to Vermont College of Fine Arts students and alums Anna Boll, Callie Miller and Jim Hill. Go, Team VCFA!

Take a few minutes to vote for your favorites!

Here's what I submitted for Round One:

Hound Dog’s Lament


I’m the Duke of Diphthongs – I know that it sounds nuts,
but when I howl the vowels glide around, unlike a normal mutt’s.
I howwww-owwww-owwwl my head off. I never bark, I mourn.
I have to play my diphthongs just like Louis Armstrong played his horn.
A dachshund is no Blues Man – his song consists of yips.
But I’m a hound, my sound is true
to how-owwwwww-OWWWWWWWWWW a diphthong dips.


[Ed. Note: Alas, my poem did not prevail! Hound dog, I still love you, but I am out of the running, so I'm going to kick back and enjoy the show for the rest of the tournament.Have fun, poets!] 

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The Poetry Friday round-up today is being hosted by Jone at Check It Out. Head over there to see what other people have posted.  

Poetry Friday: A Triptych of Tournament Poems

JUMP ROPE STEW

One, two, double-dutch stew,

cook up a kettle of skip-a-rope stew,

mulligatawny and mulligan, too,

chicken cocido and beef ragout.

Into the broth goes this and that,

spuds and turnips and bacon fat,

dumplings to the dog, carrots to the cat,

and peas to the lady with the porkpie hat.

Today I'm posting all three of the poems I've written as part of the March Poetry Madness tournament (Round One - above - and Round Two and Regional Semifinals - below.) The voting is still going on (no registration necessary - just click on "Vote") and Ed Caria (who designed the tournament) is hoping for a big surge in votes for this round of match-ups. I hope if you're reading this you'll go over and vote for your favorite. It's like a basketball tournament, but the outcome is determined not only by the skill of the players but the taste of the crowd. Some of my favorites have moved forward, other favorites have gotten clobbered, but I think all the poets are having a good time. Click here to go vote for your favorite in my current match up through Friday around 6 p.m.  - and you can vote for all the other Regional Semifinal match-ups via this page. Doesn't take long - it's good for morale - and it's good practice for next November (better choices in poems than in some of those candidates, definitely.)

Jump Rope Stew was written for Round One - the assigned word was "mulligan." When I was a kid, jump rope was a passion.

One, two, double-dutch stew....

Here are the other two poems:

Round Two - Assigned Word: "barrage"

PLAYGROUND COUNTING SONG 

One barrage, the battle’s over,

Best friends now, like cows in clover.

Kiss me quick, then chew your cud –

Rain comes down, and up comes mud.

Fee, fi -  fiddle me a song,

Everything’s right but something’s wrong.

Cows in the corn and the moon is blue –

Fo, fum, foo -  out goes you!

Best friends now, like cows in clover....

Regional Semifinals - Assigned Word: "heft"

A YEAR OF KENNINGS

Nest-chirp, feather-float, lamb-laugh, wind-waft.

Lake-lap, night-smile, flame-call, star-breeze.

Leaf-lift, mower-bite, shovel-lug, hammer-heft.

Sky-scowl, snow-show, sled-slip, face-freeze. 

lamb-laugh, wind-waft...

Kennings are an Old Norse riddle form, joining two independent words with a hyphen, making one compound word for the original word which is not mentioned (in this case Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall.)
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Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Mary Lee Hahn, my worthy opponent for the Regional Semifinals, over at A Year of Reading. She's already put her Poetry Friday post up today (Thursday) so you'll have an extra day to vote in the March Poetry Madness tournament over there, too. I'll post this now, though here on the West Coast, it's still a few hours from Friday!  Head over to Mary Lee's site to see what other people are posting.

A Poetry "Tournament"? Yes, A Poetry Tournament....

The March Poetry Madness tournament is in full swing (maybe I should say full basketball-style bounce) at Ed Caria's website. The first two rounds were great fun - we went from 64 poets in the first round to 32 poets in the second round - only 16 of us have been left standing. This time, I took a risk and entered a poem made entirely of kennings (an Old Norse literary trope where something is described via two other linked words that are hyphenated - it's an odd little riddle form I like a lot) and I'm not sure many people know what those are, though it's kind of self-explanatory. I think I'll get skunked! If I do, that will be fine - I have a worthy opponent in Mary Lee Hahn. And to tell the truth, I'm feeling almost poemed-out. Speed has never exactly been my thing, and we're having to come up with poems quickly (based on arbitrarily assigned words), send them to Ed, and then wait while people vote for their favorites. More power to those who can maintain their energy, creativity and quality!My head is spinning.

Want to see what's up? Head over to the tournament by clicking here - then vote (you don't have to be registered, you just click on "Vote.") And don't forget to follow the links to other match-ups. There are two other writers associated with Vermont College of Fine Arts who made it into the semi-finals (Stephanie Farrow, whose poem match-up is up already, and Peter Langella, whose entry will go up tomorrow.) - GO VCFA!!

P.S. I'll post all three of my poems here tomorrow for Poetry Friday!