Poetry Contest!
Chatterbox: Chirp at Cricket
Poetry Contest!
Poetry Contest!
I know this should go in the Inkwell, but I have a feeling that it will die really fast if it's there.
So, as the name says, this is a poetry contest. There will be two levels, because I want more people to have a chance to win. I'll be in the second level, because I honestly don't stand a chance against some of you. The first level will be for the masters of writing, and the second level will be for us apprentices to have a shot, too.
So I'm entering the lower level, and I'll judge the higher level.
Masters of writing, your theme for your poem is:
Sorrow.
Can be free verse, rhyme, haiku, anything as long as it has to do with sorrow.
submitted by Mei-xie (May-shyeh)
(April 10, 2016 - 12:07 pm)
(April 10, 2016 - 12:07 pm)
Thank you. I didn't expect that, and I don't think that poem deserves it, but such is life. CL, I thought yours in particular was really well done. It was a fantastic piece of literature. Cho's was just as well done. You picked a really cool poem design!
I'm not going to enter this week's round, but can I write a poem for it anyway?
(April 18, 2016 - 12:21 am)
Thanks, Ruby!
(April 18, 2016 - 12:32 pm)
Aww, thanks Ruby. Yours was very-well written and spaced, and kept an interesting but straight meter. You did deserve to win.
(April 19, 2016 - 11:21 am)
Does anyone know where I find my friend?
My friend is far away
Come and help me search for her
We will search the day away
(April 17, 2016 - 3:18 pm)
Didn't win... *sigh* At least I have another chance!
Here are the lower level winners.
1st: Over the Rainbow! I have had "friends" like that and your poem hits very close to home. I like how you alrenated lines with "You" and "Me". The last two lines were amazing: "Use your dazzling smile somewhere else. I will pop my lonely-bubble for myself". It just was that final ring, an air of defiance, the words were just... perfect. I went around reciting those lines over and over until people started looking at me weirdly. :)
2nd: Booksy Owly! All the other poems were about people, and I loved your creativity in making a book the friend of topic. Like in OtR's poem, the last two lines were just magic: "Unlocked your golden gates and let my heart within". That so perfectly describes the poem it gave me the chills—Good job!
3rd: Poetry Alias! I would love to know who you are as much as I love your poem! I especially like the part about inside jokes... My friends and I have those stupid things that only we get and everyone else thinks we're nuts, and your poem encompassed that perfectly. I really like the lines: "But we are the same, forever in my brain". Nice work!
(April 17, 2016 - 3:57 pm)
Oh my goodness! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I didn't expect to win!
The only bad thing about it is that I can't enter the next contest, oh well.
Thanks again, Abi!
(April 17, 2016 - 7:41 pm)
Oh my goodness, I got second place! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Yay yay yay!
(April 17, 2016 - 8:36 pm)
Congradulations! Your poem was beautiful.
(April 18, 2016 - 1:14 pm)
OHMIFREAKIN'DUMBLEDORENGANDALF!!!!!!!! I GOT THIRD PLACE!!!!! YOU JUST MADE MY DAY!!!!!
(April 17, 2016 - 4:21 pm)
Aw. Sad I didn't win, but I will participate in the next next one, after I judge this one (masters, that is).
Sooooo...April 24 is the deadline! I can't wait to read your silence poems!
(April 17, 2016 - 7:52 pm)
Entering Masters again! :) If this is too far off from the theme, I'll enter a new poem, but I hope this is okay.
Untitled
You think you can hear?
Just because your puny
ears
Can pick up loud,
wails
of sound?
You’re only
fooling yourself. You
can't hear
better than
a rock.
Why bother giving
you humans sound at all
When this beautiful power
is wasted
On headphones,
jammed indifferently onto ears
Howling,
Muddled,
Ugly,
Music?
Not likely.
I know what
Real music is.
Not one person has heard
what counts
if
they haven’t fought
to hear—
Blades of grass
Swishing in the wind
A river’s chuckle as it
trips merrily over
water-shined silver stones,
I see you beings,
I watch above from my perch,
You only pick up
The most obvious cries,
Of voices,
The maddening shrieks
Of human-made noise.
I can’t bear it,
When every morning,
I awaken,
sweet music—
True music—
flowing
Like a river
Out of my heart
You never hear, you never notice
me.
Not one of you
Has heard love
Has felt power,
suffering,
triumph,
emanating from a single sound.
Unless you’ve heard
Silence,
felt the peace,
of nature.
Which, I know,
is hard in your world
When honking horns and
The grinding of wheels against
A hard, concrete curb.
I know what you are thinking.
I want music,
You protest.
I’m looking for pure quiet,
but
It doesn’t exist.
That’s true.
Absolute silence is maddening.
What I mean is
Escape from all
Human-made sound.
Even after you know this…
You haven’t looked.
I see you
I sit patiently on your windowsill,
watching,
As you try in vain
to escape.
The closet
Behind the coats,
is the wrong place,
You’ve found.
Undertones ring in your ears
Voices
The oily sizzle of mom’s
frying pan.
Even the gentle hum
of
Air conditioning.
Peace isn’t the park either.
The crunch of a peanut nut in another’s mouth
Car wheels scrape the curb
In the background.
It seems impossible.
This I understand all too well.
I stay away from your towns
If at all possible,
Preferring to rest
In tranquil nature.
But remember I said “seems.”
But maybe,
Someday,
When you visit, possibly,
your Aunt Margaret, In
say, Maryland,
In her rural house
By the woods.
As you whine from
Lack of electricity
Your parents might just
Shoo you out to play
In the forest.
And as you angrily shuffle
your feet among the leaves
(Sending my kind flapping nervously away)
craving internet,
deeper you wander through the trees,
Till you pause to sulk
on a log,
Unmoving in your funk.
Slowly…
Your ears fill…
With a faraway babble
Of a brook,
A robin’s quiet chirp,
the gently sigh of a breeze
as it tickles your ear
and winds around your cheeks.
Then entranced,
You pause,
Listening,
Seemingly far away
From civilization.
Slowly,
You smile and stand up
As you walk
Peacefully, happily, away
I sigh and drift off
On a breath of wind,
I laugh— Maybe
Humans
Aren’t
So deaf
After all.
(April 17, 2016 - 9:54 pm)
The Fire Within
By Mei-xue Li (Not my real name)
Did you notice that if you turn your head sideways, the words look like fire?
It roars, oh, it burns!
It roils, oh, it churns!
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
Lo! That searing, scorching, fire.
Oh, it ignites my insides, yes, and cremates and cooks my soul.
It can fuel my acts of courage yet can burn my love like coal.
Flickering, leaping, blazing, roaring,
Jumping, dancing, flying, soaring.
It resides in the deepest crannies of my heart,
The way it blazes, it dances like art.
It lives at the very shores of my shadow,
Smoking, smoking, embers aglow.
What causes fierce bravery can also spark sin,
Behold! But beware…
The Fire Within.
(April 18, 2016 - 5:01 pm)
Nice! I really felt like there was a fire dancing in my heart! (I know that sounds weird)
(April 19, 2016 - 6:27 am)
(April 19, 2016 - 7:33 am)
Come on guys! Tip top tippity top.
(April 20, 2016 - 11:44 am)