THE FOURTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TWO
Here are the poems to vote for in week two of my fourth Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, February 25, to Sunday, March 2):
8. For the Birds, by Ciaran Berry
9. Overturn, by Martha Zweig
10. Dwarf in the Shade of a Eucalyptus, by Elton Glaser
11. The Dictator in Prison, by Adélia Prado / translated from the Portuguese by Ellen Doré Watson
12. A Place in Tuscany, by David Malouf
13. Prepare, by Danielle Grace Warren
14. Nora Barnacle's House, by Gerard Smyth
This is the second week of twelve weeks, at the end of which the twelve winners will be put together for a final vote.
HOW TO VOTE: You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog. If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments). (If you read this on Facebook, please vote on my blog and not as a comment on Facebook.) I will post comments as they come in (unless you tell me not to post the comment, of course).
You may vote by the title, the author's name, or the number of the poem in the list above. Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).
Please VOTE BY FRIDAY, March 6! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results, which might only be on March 7 or 8. If you would like to receive an email announcing the posting of the results, make sure to get me your email address somehow (if it is not available through your blogger profile or the like, say).
The winner of week 1 was Alison Brackenbury's Edward Thomas's daughter.
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15 comments:
Danielle Grace Warren. I also liked Prado and Malouf.
I was surprised and pleased to see we're both in 'Snakeskin' this month. Well done us!
Martha Zweig!
I vote for "The Dictator in Prison" by Adelia Prado. I liked all of it, but the last line sealed it for me.
I also really liked "Overturn" by Martha Zweig. I would love to hear someone read it out loud. It reads like a tongue-twister on paper...one that would be delight to hear spoken.
While I must caution against reading "For the Birds" by Ciaran Berry while eating (the brunch casserole I made was delicious despite my squeamishness) the imagery is too striking not to get a mention.
I liked the poems by Glaser and Malouf best. Both poems compel me by the way the poets pay attention to both beauty and violence, simultaneously. In the end, I lean more in the direction of Glaser's poem because the stakes seem higher and the poem tighter. So my vote is for Elton Glaser's "Dwarf in the Shade of a Eucalyptus.
There was a lot to like this week. The last line of Prado was perfect, and Berry's poem was gripping throughout. But I cast my vote for Martha Zweig--though I disliked it at first, I came to appreciate more and more the wordplay, the schizophrenic dyslexia that manages to convey meaning.
PS--did you catch the wonderful coincidence(?) that "Nora Barnacle" was published by Dedalus Press?
Malouf without a doubt .Sheer atavistic energy.
adelia prado
tho martha zweig did make me smile
For the Birds
Prado!
My choice is "For the Birds" because of the striking, vivid imagery, although the stuff about Keats at the end is disappointing.
There's some elegnat stuff here this week. My top three are Berry, Zweig, and Malouf. I like the ending of Berry, and the boys with the wren, but the opening with the hare and the Gross Clinic seemed preamble-padding, making for a weak transition; Zweig is a pleasure, especially neologistic usages like "I've ill-gotten again"; Malouf almost put me off with that long, syntacticaly complex sentence that begins: "in time" and ends, "pass," but then I had to admire the sheer elegance of it. In the end though the poem feels elegant and little more, whereas Zweig is edgy in a way I prefer. So: Zweig.
Prado is fun, but feels too slight to me, with its "dictators are people too" tongue-in-cheek insight.
Martha Zweig's =Overturn= gets my vote this week ... along with an "honorable mention" for Adelia Prado's =Dictator in Prison=
-- dhsh
Andrew,I'll go with Overturn.
After some deliberation (and before counting up the votes), I have settled on David Malouf's "A Place in Tuscany."
I first put together my shortlist: Barry's "For the Birds"; Glaser's "Dwarf in the Shade of a Eucalyptus"; Prado's "The Dictator in Prison"; Malouf's poem. All of these seemed fully successful on a first reading.
But then comes the quibbling.
Barry's poem finally seems a bit too long, and I agree with Ina that the Keats material at the end does not work well.
Glaser's poem addresses similar material in much more compact form, but finally seems too elliptical and jumpy to fully work.
Prado's poem seems a bit too much like what anybody could imagine about the dictator in prison.
And Malouf's poem still seems to work, without quibbles.
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