Poetry competition CLOSED 1st March 2020 2:07pm
WINNER
Josh (Joshua Bond)
Josh (Joshua Bond)
RUNNERS-UP:
EdibleWords
and javalini
Paradelle Universes
Anonymous
Poetry Contest Description
The Classic Corner: Billy Collins tribute
Co-Hosts - Ahavati & JohnnyBlaze
Part XXVI in an ongoing series introducing serious writers of DUP to the most well-known poets, both classical and modern.
William James Collins, known as Billy Collins, ( born March 22, 1941 ) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In 2016, Collins retired from his position as a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York after teaching there almost 50 years. Collins is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. Collins was considered as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. As of 2018, he is a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
Collins, known for his sense of humor, is also the inventor of the Paradelle - which began as a hoax, but eventually became a fun ( and very challenging ) form to complete. The inherent challenge became composing a paradelle that resulted in a comprehensible outcome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradelle
For more information regarding Collins, please visit the Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/billy-collins
Guidelines
Write a New Poem honoring Collins inspired by one of his poems. We feel listing particular poems may be constricting, and want you to follow the inspiration wherever it leads. You are allowed a maximum of 2 entries.
Do your best to make us feel as though we are reading poems by Collins. The more we feel you "capturing his essence" in "your own words" , the higher you will score. This will involve choice of wording, delivery, subject material, formatting, target audience - a wide range of factors.
The Rules
1. Up to two entries per DUP persona.
2. No erotica; this is open to all ages and can't be viewed with an ECW ( Extreme Content Warning ).
3. No exact word limit; however, attempt to keep it no more than 250 - 300.
4. Any form is acceptable ( but studying the poet is advised ).
5. Webmiss will be creating #BillyCollins in the theme list. The page will automatically generate as soon as eight entrants hashtag the theme. In the interim, #hashtag #BillyCollins in your notes as well.
6. In your poem's notes, provide a link and a title to the very poem by Collins that inspired yours. Without such, we have no way of determining if you were truly inspired by Collins or simply swapped fresh words into his existing poetry ( which is a form of plagiarism ).
***We are no longer accepting entries inspired by multiple poems *** We feel that such resulted in weaker entries. Also, it became time consuming when researching as many as four poems per entry during analysis.
LASTLY**** ALL NON-ELIGIBLE ENTRIES WILL BE REMOVED. This is not a competition to deliberately ignore guidelines so as to advertise your work.
Comp will be judged by Ahavati & JohnnyBlaze. As in the past and in the event there is a tie, we will call in third ( and possibly fourth ) judge.
You have one month; best of luck to all entrants!
Anonymous
Related submission no longer exists.
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/321740-these-paradelles-wont-hold-still/
non entry for educational purposes
non entry for educational purposes
Anonymous
Related submission no longer exists.
March's CC Poll is live and awaiting your vote!
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/speakeasy/read/11249/#466810
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/speakeasy/read/11249/#466810
Shoveling Snow with Buddha
( after Billy Collins)
He shows up from out of nowhere,
of dazzling blue once the storm passes by.
Approaches with a smile, eyes of crescent moon,
offering a hand of strength and of mirth,
as honest labor of brotherly love.
I could be overthinking an uncommon sight
added to an otherwise common act.
Besides, there’s nothing out of place
when it comes to Winter at this time of year,
with my neighborhood inundated in white powder.
And I don’t question his abbreviated attire,
a free-thinking soul such as myself.
But has he not got things turned around
in the scheme of temperatures?
Still, off we go clearing my driveway,
shoveling without stopping for a meditate.
Serene, with a sense of serenity, opens his face,
while it is our own man-made flurry’s arc
that blurs each other in the crisp air.
Working under Heaven than indoors,
I call out in the brilliance, the Buddha digs.
This is why we are born, with Nature in Winter,
I raise my free hand but he concentrates.
The way to Nirvana is via driveway.
Better take the car in this weather;
the heater doesn’t work but the radio does.
We go nonstop until the day is noon.
With my endless, run-on definitive larks,
and him in a simple, quiet place of harmony.
All about us, the snow castles we made,
it’s then I hear him say like I would do;
Can we go inside and read poetry?
By all means. Anyone in particular?
The Buddha serenely sighs, eyes seek
as he bows in a moment’s contemplation,
and the dazzling blue of midday sky
casts the blade into fresh snow.
He shows up from out of nowhere,
of dazzling blue once the storm passes by.
Approaches with a smile, eyes of crescent moon,
offering a hand of strength and of mirth,
as honest labor of brotherly love.
I could be overthinking an uncommon sight
added to an otherwise common act.
Besides, there’s nothing out of place
when it comes to Winter at this time of year,
with my neighborhood inundated in white powder.
And I don’t question his abbreviated attire,
a free-thinking soul such as myself.
But has he not got things turned around
in the scheme of temperatures?
Still, off we go clearing my driveway,
shoveling without stopping for a meditate.
Serene, with a sense of serenity, opens his face,
while it is our own man-made flurry’s arc
that blurs each other in the crisp air.
Working under Heaven than indoors,
I call out in the brilliance, the Buddha digs.
This is why we are born, with Nature in Winter,
I raise my free hand but he concentrates.
The way to Nirvana is via driveway.
Better take the car in this weather;
the heater doesn’t work but the radio does.
We go nonstop until the day is noon.
With my endless, run-on definitive larks,
and him in a simple, quiet place of harmony.
All about us, the snow castles we made,
it’s then I hear him say like I would do;
Can we go inside and read poetry?
By all means. Anyone in particular?
The Buddha serenely sighs, eyes seek
as he bows in a moment’s contemplation,
and the dazzling blue of midday sky
casts the blade into fresh snow.
Written by Jade-Pandora
(jade tiger)
Go To Page
The Art of Reading Billy Collins - re: Introduction to Poetry
There's only one or two
righteous ways to read
Billy Collins how-to poetry
Childishly and imaginatively,
Mainly
If you actually try to apply
his advice in real life
he'll drop a mouse down
your pants!
He says "it goes into the poem and
feels for the light switch....."
Not creepy, at all...
...only to switch your hide
with a waterski on the surface
of his "playful" poem!
Then, lets his poem play
the martyr victim
while I take the hose!
#BillyCollins
righteous ways to read
Billy Collins how-to poetry
Childishly and imaginatively,
Mainly
If you actually try to apply
his advice in real life
he'll drop a mouse down
your pants!
He says "it goes into the poem and
feels for the light switch....."
Not creepy, at all...
...only to switch your hide
with a waterski on the surface
of his "playful" poem!
Then, lets his poem play
the martyr victim
while I take the hose!
#BillyCollins
Written by EdibleWords
Go To Page
Best Kind of Electrocution
Electricity is the kind of thing we most often survive
unless by some misfortune it stops our heart
This fact alone reminds me of heroin
Heroin reminds me of a certain heroine
She liked to play with electrical stimulation
by firing her neurons with a drug
that zapped her with strong pleasures
but only when she was feeling lonely
Just like electricity makes the heart stop
her heart did stop, or nearly so
until EMTs managed to revive her
prompting an apology song
Yet electricity continues to play a vital role
in society like the unstoppable heroin trade
athough everyone could use DC current
and other nations succeeded in eliminating
dangerous opium trade, only to see invasion
After all is said and done, we can garner lessons
Electrocution is a thing to be best enjoyed surviving
Heroin or heroine also is best to be survived
Yet none of these things will be fashionably safe... ever
#BillyCollins
unless by some misfortune it stops our heart
This fact alone reminds me of heroin
Heroin reminds me of a certain heroine
She liked to play with electrical stimulation
by firing her neurons with a drug
that zapped her with strong pleasures
but only when she was feeling lonely
Just like electricity makes the heart stop
her heart did stop, or nearly so
until EMTs managed to revive her
prompting an apology song
Yet electricity continues to play a vital role
in society like the unstoppable heroin trade
athough everyone could use DC current
and other nations succeeded in eliminating
dangerous opium trade, only to see invasion
After all is said and done, we can garner lessons
Electrocution is a thing to be best enjoyed surviving
Heroin or heroine also is best to be survived
Yet none of these things will be fashionably safe... ever
#BillyCollins
Written by EdibleWords
Go To Page
Ploughshare
( After Billy Collins )
Observing an ocean of rain—
so many fishtails, hydroplaning
amid a merriment of muddy streets
reflections quaver under light—
deadwood trash washed out
to the air by waning wind
—commuters, rippling
toward landing places
I press on despite the storm;
its downpour uterin warm
—the alchemy of each breath
a gift terraforming myself—
in the recourse of clouds I realize
every departure is an undergone act—
every step-toward an eternal record
burrowing deep inside ourselves
—while Life’s plow point carves
now-fertile seeds into once-fallow fields
awaiting future yields 'of everything
and nothing at once'
~
#BillyCollins
Observing an ocean of rain—
so many fishtails, hydroplaning
amid a merriment of muddy streets
reflections quaver under light—
deadwood trash washed out
to the air by waning wind
—commuters, rippling
toward landing places
I press on despite the storm;
its downpour uterin warm
—the alchemy of each breath
a gift terraforming myself—
in the recourse of clouds I realize
every departure is an undergone act—
every step-toward an eternal record
burrowing deep inside ourselves
—while Life’s plow point carves
now-fertile seeds into once-fallow fields
awaiting future yields 'of everything
and nothing at once'
~
#BillyCollins
Written by Ahavati
(Tams)
Go To Page
My Second Amendment Friend
Fed-up with their constant fulminating
Using the Constitution as justification for intimidation
They parade around with their military assault weapons
Warning they also carry concealed handguns
They bloviate how they’re ready to kill anyone
Who dares challenge their rightwing ideology
So, he began searching his storage closet
While sorting through his old belongings
Images of those dead children he taught
Murdered in his school’s mass shooting
Flashed vividly in obsessional imagery
He found it!
The present his father gave him on his 12th birthday
A .22 squirrel rifle given as rural rite of passage
Like David with his sling, he was a crack shot
The last time he used it was to kill a coyote
That was raiding his family farm’s livestock
After the predator had killed a lamb
He shot the brush-wolf right behind the ear
At over a 100 yards while it was running
Removing the vintage weapon of from its shammy sleeve
Holding it in his hand he said,
“Hello my trusty old friend
You and I are back together once again
We’re going to a Second Amendment rally
To show them how it’s done”
Together they walked out the door
Remember my young friends, bullets always fly both ways in the end;
Always!
#BillyCollins
Using the Constitution as justification for intimidation
They parade around with their military assault weapons
Warning they also carry concealed handguns
They bloviate how they’re ready to kill anyone
Who dares challenge their rightwing ideology
So, he began searching his storage closet
While sorting through his old belongings
Images of those dead children he taught
Murdered in his school’s mass shooting
Flashed vividly in obsessional imagery
He found it!
The present his father gave him on his 12th birthday
A .22 squirrel rifle given as rural rite of passage
Like David with his sling, he was a crack shot
The last time he used it was to kill a coyote
That was raiding his family farm’s livestock
After the predator had killed a lamb
He shot the brush-wolf right behind the ear
At over a 100 yards while it was running
Removing the vintage weapon of from its shammy sleeve
Holding it in his hand he said,
“Hello my trusty old friend
You and I are back together once again
We’re going to a Second Amendment rally
To show them how it’s done”
Together they walked out the door
Remember my young friends, bullets always fly both ways in the end;
Always!
#BillyCollins
Written by snugglebuck
Go To Page
Silence
A gathering silence
Thoughts on lips
Silence
Before uttering words
Of no importance
The silence in churches
Before prayers
Silence in the dew drops
That hydrate flower petals
Silence of the birds at night
The breathless silence
Of an athlete before competition
The guilty silence of a sinner
Tranquil silence
Of the falling man
I find silence everywhere
If you would only stop, listen
Random silences of the day
Deeper feeling of silence
In the darkness
My silence
Your silence
The solitary silence
Nature’s silence
Before the storm
#Billy Collins
Thoughts on lips
Silence
Before uttering words
Of no importance
The silence in churches
Before prayers
Silence in the dew drops
That hydrate flower petals
Silence of the birds at night
The breathless silence
Of an athlete before competition
The guilty silence of a sinner
Tranquil silence
Of the falling man
I find silence everywhere
If you would only stop, listen
Random silences of the day
Deeper feeling of silence
In the darkness
My silence
Your silence
The solitary silence
Nature’s silence
Before the storm
#Billy Collins
Written by AspergerPoet56
Go To Page
Reading Myself to Sleep in My Hometown of Manhattan
( after Billy Collins )
I look forward to enlightenment as I am about to
retire to a bedroom in a master suite overlooking
the upper Manhattan skyline of lights that remain
burning while I plan to sail in a glorious sendoff.
A snifter of brandy helps to set aside anticipation
of watching fireworks at midnight from forty floors,
to put me on track the choice of leather I’ll read.
A soft swish of diaphanous curtains sway across
from stem to stern with a click by remote control
in a city’s lull of harbor lights and boats docked full.
The other sounds subside to permit I scan pages
while serenely letting me drift within the book’s
intent to take my mind and breath away up river,
and around the first bend of a fantasy solidified
as I exhale the way a river sighs and starts to drift
along the sultry wake of turning pages floating by.
To entice I tip into the underlife slipping on endless,
sinking into the luxury of letting go, the book to fall
as I travel through adventures that will never exist,
and the fish take me back as liners pass by Liberty.
I look forward to enlightenment as I am about to
retire to a bedroom in a master suite overlooking
the upper Manhattan skyline of lights that remain
burning while I plan to sail in a glorious sendoff.
A snifter of brandy helps to set aside anticipation
of watching fireworks at midnight from forty floors,
to put me on track the choice of leather I’ll read.
A soft swish of diaphanous curtains sway across
from stem to stern with a click by remote control
in a city’s lull of harbor lights and boats docked full.
The other sounds subside to permit I scan pages
while serenely letting me drift within the book’s
intent to take my mind and breath away up river,
and around the first bend of a fantasy solidified
as I exhale the way a river sighs and starts to drift
along the sultry wake of turning pages floating by.
To entice I tip into the underlife slipping on endless,
sinking into the luxury of letting go, the book to fall
as I travel through adventures that will never exist,
and the fish take me back as liners pass by Liberty.
Written by Jade-Pandora
(jade tiger)
Go To Page
Regret (for Billy Collins)
There is this sense of the irony here,
and of subtle humor --
clever twists on universal truths
not producing a so-called horselaugh or even a giggle
but more a smirk of acknowledgment
or maybe a snort or a nod
or just a twinkle in the eye
indicating that yes, we get it and yes, it is funny
especially if one likes his humor
dipping a baby toe in the mildly acidic waters of ironic drollery.
Which is, like it or not, where truth often resides.
Because we might as well accept the slapstick antics
involved in trying so hard,
earnestly navigating life's turbulent seas
and attributing our sunken ships to a god's desire
or to Him taking time from his busy schedule
to teach us a lesson that is always too late to be applicable
and is better known
as regret.
#BillyCollins
and of subtle humor --
clever twists on universal truths
not producing a so-called horselaugh or even a giggle
but more a smirk of acknowledgment
or maybe a snort or a nod
or just a twinkle in the eye
indicating that yes, we get it and yes, it is funny
especially if one likes his humor
dipping a baby toe in the mildly acidic waters of ironic drollery.
Which is, like it or not, where truth often resides.
Because we might as well accept the slapstick antics
involved in trying so hard,
earnestly navigating life's turbulent seas
and attributing our sunken ships to a god's desire
or to Him taking time from his busy schedule
to teach us a lesson that is always too late to be applicable
and is better known
as regret.
#BillyCollins
Written by javalini
Go To Page
Ten to Eleven
As we ran with fleeting chance
like insects, fly from summer's grass
like dogs just let off a lead
dirty hands, and dirty knees
See no danger, pay no heed
lied when I said I cleaned my teeth
tremble as I braved a "dare"
with impish grin and tousled hair
Did my mind just twist the facts
reminisce through hazy cataracts
Just outlines, as we squint the past
was my ten, just that far back
Old photographic remnants, in hand-me downs
refractions of that life in sepia brown
Now let me see, was that the class of 1927
could be; If so I had just turned eleven
#Billy Collins
like insects, fly from summer's grass
like dogs just let off a lead
dirty hands, and dirty knees
See no danger, pay no heed
lied when I said I cleaned my teeth
tremble as I braved a "dare"
with impish grin and tousled hair
Did my mind just twist the facts
reminisce through hazy cataracts
Just outlines, as we squint the past
was my ten, just that far back
Old photographic remnants, in hand-me downs
refractions of that life in sepia brown
Now let me see, was that the class of 1927
could be; If so I had just turned eleven
#Billy Collins
Written by slipalong
Go To Page
Why Don't You Cry...
(…and Write a Poem About It)
Not to make myself seem a little too sensitive
or at least delicate in certain matters of
a couples playful banter but
my wife likes to play a little rough from time to time
and when I lightheartedly say “hey you’re hurting me”
she aptly replies “Why don’t you cry and write a poem about it.”
Now, I’m usually looking for inspiration for my next piece
but sometimes my muse flicks a little too hard
in those “sensitive” spots and that when I retract just a bit.
I’ll pout jokingly and that’s when she says
“Why don’t you cry and write a poem about it.”
“OK maybe I will” I usually reply but the time never comes.
So a couple of days go by and as I’m looking for that next sign
or the Suggestion Box as Billy calls it
I find motivation when I least expect it
that’s unless she looks at me a certain way
then I get all warm and fussy and I spill something…
corny, horny or all together sappy.
But there have been times when I’ve inspired myself
Just by a random thought
Or the lyrics of a song
Or the passage of a book I remember suddenly
Or maybe even something that touched me deeply
And as I sit there quietly
Listening to the sound of my voice inside my head
Giving me the words and directions
I feel my eyes begin to well up just a bit
Enough to write a poem about it.
#BillyCollins
Not to make myself seem a little too sensitive
or at least delicate in certain matters of
a couples playful banter but
my wife likes to play a little rough from time to time
and when I lightheartedly say “hey you’re hurting me”
she aptly replies “Why don’t you cry and write a poem about it.”
Now, I’m usually looking for inspiration for my next piece
but sometimes my muse flicks a little too hard
in those “sensitive” spots and that when I retract just a bit.
I’ll pout jokingly and that’s when she says
“Why don’t you cry and write a poem about it.”
“OK maybe I will” I usually reply but the time never comes.
So a couple of days go by and as I’m looking for that next sign
or the Suggestion Box as Billy calls it
I find motivation when I least expect it
that’s unless she looks at me a certain way
then I get all warm and fussy and I spill something…
corny, horny or all together sappy.
But there have been times when I’ve inspired myself
Just by a random thought
Or the lyrics of a song
Or the passage of a book I remember suddenly
Or maybe even something that touched me deeply
And as I sit there quietly
Listening to the sound of my voice inside my head
Giving me the words and directions
I feel my eyes begin to well up just a bit
Enough to write a poem about it.
#BillyCollins
Written by wallyroo92
Go To Page
