DPP2 results

THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TWO RESULTS

This morning, the class voted on the poems and was of as many minds about them as the bloggers have been. The result: 12 votes, a three-way tie, and 3 votes each for:

11. C. D. Wright, "Dear night dear shade dear executioner"
12. Elizabeth Bradfield, "Industry"
13. Paul Zimmer, "Suck It Up"

Instead of a doing a run-off, I decided to have all three poems be accepted into the pool of finalists for the end of the term!

I voted for Zimmer's "Suck It Up," with Bradfield's "Industry" and Christopher Bakken's "Portrait Detail, with Pear" as close runners-up. Zimmer's poem perhaps snuck its way into my mind because it reminded me of J. M. Coetzee's novel Slow Man: it was as if I was reading about Coetzee's main character, Paul Rayment, watching a mediocre boxing match. On Bakken's poem, I fully agree with Don Brown's comment as to why he voted for that poem: "So Bakken wins for actually having a subject and rendering it well and just making us think about it in a way we might not otherwise. For me, poetry is all about 'as if' and Bakken writes 'as if' that portrait detail were simply waiting for a poem to notice it." As if the detail were waiting for a poem to notice it: a beautiful phrase, Don.

The bloggers (16 votes, Don among them) were also of many minds about this week's poems. When I talked to the class this morning, I had one result: a tie between Bakken and Zimmer. When I tallied up some late votes this evening, I had a different result: with four votes, the winner is Tom Sleigh's "Blueprint." Here again, I have to go with Don: it's too much in the "welcome in my head" genre for my taste. But it's the winner!

You can see the Week One results here. I'll be posting a call for votes for week three on Monday; in the meantime, of course, you can already the poems on Poetry Daily (the poems from April 9 to April 15).

DPP2

THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TWO

Here are the poems to vote for in week two of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, April 2, to Sunday, April 8):

8. Monday, April 2: Penelope Shuttle, "Dukedom"
9. Tuesday, April 3: Grace Schulman, "The Fifth of July"
10. Wednesday, April 4: Christopher Bakken, "Portrait Detail, with Pear"
11. Thursday, April 5: C. D. Wright, "Dear night dear shade dear executioner"
12. Friday, April 6: Elizabeth Bradfield, "Industry"
13. Saturday, April 7: Paul Zimmer, "Suck It Up"
14. Sunday, April 8: Tom Sleigh, "Blueprint"

The Rules:

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). In any case, I will not post the comments until after the final vote is in (secret ballot). Please vote by the number of the poem in the list below! Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem! Please VOTE BY THURSDAY, APRIL 12!

(If you are planning to keep voting for the next few months, then you can always read the poems each day they appear!)

You can see the Week One results here.