Subscribe by RSS2/14 Rooftop Open Mic and Online Sonnet Contest
Posted by Dennis Reed, Jr. on January 4, 2007
| Rooftop Reading for 2/14 POSTPONED due to inclement weather.
Congratulations to Kym Venditti, winner of the online sonnet contest! And THANK YOU to all those who participated. |
The Rooftop Poetry Club presents:
Cupid’s Arrows and Literary Darts
Valentine’s Day Open Mic & Online Sonnet Contest
Convene all ye broken hearted! Join us in Butler Library 210 on February 14th at 4 pm for an afternoon of waxing poetic over sweethearts won and lost. Poems of unrequited love are especially encouraged. Sweet treats will be served to salve our bitter hearts.In addition to the Valentine’s Day open mic, we are pleased to announce our online sonnet contest! Reply to this blog post with your finished sonnet. The poem can be about anything you like, but should follow these guidelines for composition. The winner will be announced at the February 14th reading. Read on for an example of a sonnet, and more contest details.
To those who loved and lost their sweethearts bright,
Who wailed their lamentations to the rain;
Who spilled love’s ink upon the heartless night,
Here is your chance to profit from your pain.A contest we will hold upon the Web!
Be sure to enter quick, fall not behind;
A sonnet in the style of those long dead;
Of five iambic feet and fourteen lines.Some English faculty will judge your song,
So count your words, their stresses and their feet.
Our judges know when what you write goes wrong;
The winner will receive a prize most sweet.Submit a merry rhyme wrought from your tears.
Direct your weary mouse below–click here.
Rachel said
when is the deadline for the sonnet to be entered in the contest? Who will be the judges?
Dennis Reed, Jr. said
The deadline is February 9th. The judges are select English faculty.
Christopher Stampone said
When I look back on how I spent my days,
I feel as though time robbed me of my youth,
And wish that I’d done more to gain praise;
I lost my life to trifling things, in truth.
I spent my time to make a coy girl smile,
And stole the hearts of several of the like;
And not once did I think with all my guile,
That time would steal itself from me in spite.
But when I’m sad and contemplate the cost,
I think of you my dear, and scream, “Hooray!”
For you redeem the time I spent and lost
And find the clock life wrongly stashed away.
You make small moments last eternally,
And make brute time a mere, sad slave of thee.
Lisa Krieger said
Oh moon, were I as strong as thou art bright
I would not have such sorrow on my mind.
You shine, unfalteringly, throughout the night.
And death should come to those whom you strike blind!
In patterns dost thou turn, in cycles true.
Oh, how I covet such control and grace!
The tears of pain are never found on you
to burn hot trails of sadness down your face.
As long as thou art there, I know my fate.
I can desire, act, and imitate.
Kyla said
If we are not poets can we bring our favorite love poems?
tomfoolery4 said
some college
I wonder if I wasted my university youth
Chasing poetry girls in underground clubs,
Pounding it out for newspapers & facsimiles of love,
Smoking cigarettes in front of student union groups,
Exploiting introductory philosophy classes
Mouthing off to my sociology professor
Such a young and surly instigator
Laughing off options for fails and passes.
Yet youth is always wasted on the young,
And on the journey I’ve traveled on,
I wouldn’t be the well versed curmedgeon I am,
Without the 19 yr old collegiate Descartes fan.
I swore I was too smart for my creative writing teacher,
But the elements of style still stir spiritual fervor.
tomfoolery4 said
maturation
She’s far too sensible and conventional,
Rolling socks and clipping coupons,
Less like my exes and more like their moms.
The rest of my girls have been a handful,
Drunken, crazy, speaking without consequence,
With loud laughs, strange sex and stranger clothing.
Flings that played out like a death sentence,
Bar room brawls and the business of proving.
I suppose I’ve finally gone and grown up,
I’m not some watery eyed, fawning pup,
The instant shock value I brought upon friends,
Was truly a fleeting and fanciful trend.
So we settle in together to a weekly routine,
And I’m one out of two that makes the scenes.
Lisa said
Yes- feel free to bring your favorite love poems to the reading on the 14th!
keller said
is this the sonnet space?
Dennis Reed, Jr. said
Yes, Keller, it is.
R Jackman said
Was There Ever A Better Time?
Was there ever a better time to mourn?
Now as I struggle standing up to leave,
If forever is just more time to grieve,
Then I wish you and I were never born.
Here with my tears in the early gray morn’,
Events replay with my face in my sleeve,
Head in my hands as you fought hard to breathe,
I can not seem to admit you have gone.
Will her family ever forgive me?
With this as my penance I will try best
To repay all the love she gave to me.
I had never hoped to cause such a mess,
Begging God, crying, as I say sorry,
My lover smiling, dying against my breast.
Bryon D. Howell said
PERFECT LOVE, GONE IS SIXTY SECONDS
I heard the door, in darkness, left my bed,
went to the window, made my given way;
a million apprehensions in my head…
I watched you leave while wishing you could stay.
You waved me out while standing at your car,
in seconds I was out there in your hand;
you know too well how anxious lovers are…
if you need something, I’m at your command.
You fumbled for a cigarette and I…
I realized in seconds you’d be gone;
the one who had it all just came up shy…
you needed matches, I gave you the dawn.
Your eyes told mine you never would return…
I gave too much of what a soul must earn.
Lisa Forrest said
Valentine’s Day ‘07
by David Lampe
The two saints of this day
each literally lost his head,
witnesses beyond human clay
to the cause for which they bled.
Cheerful Chaucer chose their date
for his Parlement of Fowles
where birds meet to pick their mate
and parody courtship of human fools.
Long captive in London’s prison tower
Duke Charles sent a ballade he had wrought
to his dead lady, tender love from his stony bower
where he lay “on his bed of painful thought.”
Quaint custom? Today thousands of printed cards are sold
to loving fools who still burn with love, despite the bitter cold.
Rachel said
Bathroom Decisions
Some guy said, “Pick me up for our next date”
At his house, he forgot all about me
Conversation was a one man debate
Called me “Tonya” but my name is Marie!
Shy him, escorted me to his bathroom
My eyes widened at what lay there: a mess
He could not even, quickly use a broom
I had looked away to hide my distress
I tip toed on the sticky hairy floor
Hesitantly, closed the door and locked it
Past dirty red underwear, last week he wore
I thought in the mirror, smarten up, split!
Past few weeks, I dreaded hearing from him
I hear his after an old friend, poor Kim
William A. Cragun II said
Valentine’s Day Sonnet A
We dance a day in universal strings.
Among chaos origami souls
cry out her earthen song’s melodic ring,
stretch ancient notes across these heaven folds.
Her gaze wanders to touch these velvets legs,
reaching my night to bridge light and dark.
Walls refract rainbow in her midnight star.
Morning meadows always have sung our names
to forever seek in naked love.
When shadows set a spiral sun became
An echo of our world’s forgotten hum.
This day of hearts I reach for her embrace
where peace may find me in her star-lit face.
Lisa Forrest said
Clover by Kym Venditti
It was not her to find the one clover-
You hear the girl is green with envy, but THere was not a choice and no one asked her.
Still, they call her a dumb and dirty slut.
How many are lucky in the green fields?
Oh, jealous petals of three and not four!
A Child plucks the leaves one by one–a shield!
The field needs a shield! Welfare or Reform?
But isn’t each special petal God’s will?
You can’t dictate what a Clover willbe– Why should you protect the love she fulfills?
Her fate wasn’t a rich man’s family.
Those common in fields now needn’t feel shame.
We hold our faith–three petals be our name.
Lisa Forrest said
Mr. Cool by Charles Bachman
Mr. Shakovo took himself out alone to a bar
deciding he needed more friends so what the hell
put on some cleaner duds, spruce up the hair
(what there was of it), leave this lonely cell
of an apartment for the wider world.
He found himself in a quiet corner, looking
up into blondish hair so sexily curled
he had to glance down, hoping the surging ping
of his pulse couldn’t be heard. She asked him was he
ready to order, yes, he mumbled, a Bud,
when she brought it he finally looked up to see that she
was leaning over with a huge smile. Not a word
he said as she went to wait on a guy on a bar stool
except, soft, to himself, you fool, you fool.
Lisa Forrest said
The Bachelor’s Sonnet
by R.D. Pohl
Never believed in love. Thought it youthful conceit.
And the word itself stuck in my throat: a pretty ribbon
tied on lust and contact sport with cheap cologne.
My head led one way, heart another, discreet
money stayed home and was not amused.
Sonnets were the insidious form that foisted
marriage of true minds on an unsuspecting world.
Better suffer fools than marry them was the rule I observed.
But the script I study at my parents’ grave
tells a different story of love’s long march,
From marriage to mortgage, tryst to dust, they fell
just once more than they rose. At the house they’ve
left clematis still clings to the weathered courtyard arch,
but there are no blooms, no flowers, only fortunes to tell.