I doubt that many will try for this, but it might help someone's book.

All you do to enter the competition is to post your intention to do so on this thread. Then go to my non-ED-seeking anthology A Stony Path, and select a single poem or story or play from chapters 2-6. Write a comment on it. Some poems are as short as three lines. The longest item in the collection can be read in five minutes or less, unless you're reading the bibliography that is chapter 7, which is not part of the competition anyway, or the chapter of my novel Faust's Butterfly, which is there merely to fill out the 10,000 word requirement and which forms chapter 8.

The author of the comment I deem most perceptive--I DON'T mean most complimentary--will be selected as the winner when the competition closes on July 18 at 6 PM Texas time--midnight London time. The date is quite arbitrary, but it happens to be the day of my next appointment with O.Z. Helmer, the excellent dentist to whom I have entrusted all my dental work for many years.

There is ONE prize for ONE winner.

I will read all you have posted of your book (if you have more than one book, you get to select which one you wish to promote) and write a sonnet, a villanelle, or a poem in free verse or blank verse promoting it which you may then use any way you wish. For an example of a promotional villanelle, see the next post. I find free verse the most difficult to write, but will do so if you ask me to. Blank verse is, of course, the verse for most used by Shakespeare and Milton--unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Posted: 04/07/2012 13:36:05
Last Edit: 11/07/2012 22:56:14 by William Holt

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The Forever Girl (A villanelle promoting a novel on Authonomy by Rebecca Hamilton--ipaintwithwords)

Sophia's life is more than what it seems.
Among her burdens, more than she can bear,
The voices fill her days and haunt her dreams.

Companioned in the woods, the place she deems
Ripe for a spell, she makes an altar there.
Sophia's life is more than what it seems.

Her candles are blown out as strange wind streams
Amid the friends with whom she's tried to share.
The voices fill her days and haunt her dreams.

A message from the past now shows her gleams
Of truth long hidden from the open air.
Sophia's life is more than what it seems.

The revelation fills her mind, which teems
With new awareness, and of course new care.
The voices fill her days and haunt her dreams.

Her path determined, now the ancient themes
Of destiny and truth cast out despair.
Sophia's life is more than what it seems;
The voices fill her days and haunt her dreams.


Posted: 04/07/2012 13:37:36

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And this is a sonnet promoting my own book, Faust's Butterfly:

Deep in the heartland things are dying fast.
Tree skeletons look down on every lawn
Where nothing green will greet the summer dawn,
But mushrooms, worms, and slugs remain; aghast,

The people try to remedy the blight
But they cannot contain the spread of death.
The hardy cockroach draws its final breath
While all the dogs and cats have taken flight.

Nearby a river, flowing underground,
Bears evidence of crimes done far below--
Crimes of such cruelty as to strike a blow
At all our hopes, no matter how profound,

That good may come from ill-intended deeds
When truth is sought, no matter where it leads.


Posted: 04/07/2012 13:39:54
Last Edit: 04/07/2012 14:01:11 by William Holt

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Both the books in the two previous posts already have their HC reviews. Whether the poems actually helped is anyone's guess!

But I'm fairly sure they did no harm.

Posted: 04/07/2012 14:27:57
Last Edit: 04/07/2012 14:33:06 by William Holt

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Competition has been open for nearly an hour, and no one has entered,

That's exactly what I expected.

I am a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist.

That's why I'm not too worried about the future of civilization, but I fear the US and European economic situation will get worse before it gets better.

Posted: 04/07/2012 14:43:35
Last Edit: 04/07/2012 14:48:59 by William Holt

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I'll give it a try later today. I'm not particularly perceptive, and I rarely win contests, but I like your poems so it doesn't really matter if I win.

Posted: 04/07/2012 15:26:34

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I'll give it a try later today. I'm not particularly perceptive, and I rarely win contests, but I like your poems so it doesn't really matter if I win.

Wonderful! A participant! This is one I did for Cass McMain (Helianthus), whose wonderful book Sunflower IS in competition:

Sunflower--An Exhortation

Michael, beware. You know not what you do.
You're driving lovely Jess away despite
Her wish to love you, see the tough times through.
Soon you will sleep alone night after night.
That gin you're drinking dulls the pain you feel
But won't protect you from the angry ghost
That haunts your dreams and seems about to steal
Your confidence, your livelihood, your most
Essential quality, a strong sound mind.
When you sit down to drink alone and mope,
You're leaving more than work and love behind:
You're speeding toward a place devoid of hope.

You're doomed to change to something that you hate
If you can't pass that frightful welded gate.

Posted: 04/07/2012 15:31:40
Last Edit: 04/07/2012 15:33:28 by William Holt

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I really would like to see Cass's book on the ED.

Posted: 04/07/2012 16:02:09

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Has anyone ever written a poem to or for you? It can feel surprisingly good, even if the poem is dreadful!

Posted: 04/07/2012 16:07:55

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This is a recent poem VERY loosely derived from the Anglo-Saxon; no one has mentioned it in any of the 100 comments so far:

Life's Brevity
(Paraphrased from the Venerable Bede)

From out the dark a little bird
Enters a hall suffused with light
And through the hall it takes its flight
Back to the darkness--so absurd

Is this our life--our conscious self--
That nothing we might say or do,
Nothing that causes pride or rue,
Nothing that brings us want or pelf

Can matter to us any more
Than just a little gain or loss
As we swiftly fly across
And exit through the further door

Into the dark. It's all we know,
We creatures of a moment only,
Creatures ever sad and lonely,
In the bright hall's fleeting glow.

Posted: 04/07/2012 16:40:13

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