DPP11 results

Here, finally, after much delay, are the results of the voting in week 11 of the Daily Poem Project. This time, I was not waiting to see a tie get broken (or simply more votes be cast) in the blogger side of the vote; the problem was with the class vote.

In class on Friday, 14 votes were cast, with three poems receiving three each and two receiving two each. Not wanting to have yet another week in which the class vote did not result in one winner, I wrote to the two students who had not voted in class, as well as to the two students who had been absent, to ask them to help break the tie.

One of the absentees said he did not have time to vote, and one of the students who had not voted even though he had been in class sent me a vote — but it made the vote a four-way tie!

This morning, though, thankfully, I received a vote from the other absentee, who broke the tie and made After Persephone, by Tracy K. Smith, the winner of the class vote for this week.

But the bloggers disagreed: 12 votes were cast, with Hey You, by Adrian Blevins, receiving four votes as the winner. In second place with 3 votes came The Dark-Light of Spring, by Eric Leigh.

For me, many of these poems slip up for one moment, and that leaves them wanting. "Hinge of loss" is the line that slips up for me in Leigh. This may be unfair, because it is a longer poem, but that just means he has to maintain the right tone and diction and phrasing for longer, not that he's allowed to slip up.

Several other poems had similar moments, too. I was left with "Hey You": a deeply strange poem, but phrased just right, and with mysteries and puzzles that feel productive, implying that if I pursued them I would find something worthwhile.

The comments on the call for votes:

Bruce Loebrich's ranked list (my favorite is at the top):

76. The Dark-Light of Spring, by Eric Leigh
77. After Persephone, by Tracy K. Smith
74. 2:09 a.m. IM , by Janet Holmes
73. Hey You, by Adrian Blevins
71. There Is A Bird We Cannot See, by Molly Lou Freeman (only the first poem)
75. Bright World, by Carl Phillips
72. Paradise, by Arthur Smith

Felix wrote: "There Is A Bird We Cannot See" by M. L. Freeman is my favourite this week. It's a dark, yet powerful reflection on life and the intensities of living. The bird is, perhaps, a late echo of Keats's nightingale (also with respect to the sophisticated sound patterns of the poem).

Meanwhile, Thom Satterlee sent me an email that was so beautiful I asked him if I could post it and he gave me permission to do so:

'I vote for Paradise, by Arthur Smith. When I first read this poem, the day it appeared on PD, I knew it would be the one I'd vote for. I love what the poet is doing in this poem, making an impossible proposition ("I used to live there [in paradise]") believable through specific, surprising, musical detail. The way the first line speaks back to the title, I knew what Smith proposed to do in this poem--so I was never confused by it--and watched him put on his verbal show, a very nice one, I think. It's the sort of poem where the poet has worked hard to get everything right (the images, the lines, the tone of the speakers voice) so that the reader can relax and enjoy. I re-read the poem not to better understand it, but to enjoy it, the way you would re-watch a scene in a movie or enjoy an instant replay of a fine moment in a sport match.'

Week 10 results are here. A summary of the results of the first nine weeks is at the end of the week 9 results.

DPP11

THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK ELEVEN

Here are the poems to vote for in week eleven of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, June 4, to Sunday, June 10):

71. There Is A Bird We Cannot See, by Molly Lou Freeman (only the first poem)
72. Paradise, by Arthur Smith
73. Hey You, by Adrian Blevins
74. 2:09 a.m. IM , by Janet Holmes
75. Bright World, by Carl Phillips
76. The Dark-Light of Spring, by Eric Leigh
77. After Persephone, by Tracy K. Smith

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). 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 THURSDAY, JUNE 14! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results, which might only be on June 15 or 16.

If you want to receive an email announcing the results, send me your email address with your vote (if you have a public blogger profile, I can usually find it).

Abstaining: If you read the poems but decide that there is no poem that you want to vote for, I would be interested to know that you decided to abstain.

Week 10 results are here. A summary of the results of the first nine weeks is at the end of the week 9 results.