The Hawk In The Rain

A big thank you to all who paid tribute to this month's featured poets with unique emulations. As in previous challenges, these are very difficult to judge, and sometimes come down to a simple typo or grammatical error breaking a tie. This month was no different.

As for Ted Hughes in particular, I ( JohnnyBlaze ) personally found his writing style to be quite an uncomfortable challenge. Essentially, you have to study Hughes and his body of work to better understand what each poem means in a single reading. Which is fine in a competition such as this; the more studying of the poet you do on a macro level, the better you comprehend his or her  work on a poem by poem basis or micro level. And that's what the Classic Comps are all about - becoming familiar with noteworthy poets who've left their mark on the world.

However, If you are a first time reader unfamiliar with Hughes --- you are going to do a lot of head-scratching, double-take-ing, and re-reading. And perhaps that is his overall appeal --- he created his own private universe of metaphor and symbology; you must birth yourself into it and live by its physics to truly appreciate it and his efforts.  

That being said, here are the following winners!

First Place: PoetsRevenge for Examination At The Womb Door (That Little Death)

Congratulations! You get the Tropheee!

Your tribute is so much more rich in depth than the inspiration poem by Hughes, which is a bit taxing until he finally gets to the point.

You made great use of his imagery, but owned it with your unique concept. Primarily because of that, this was the better of your two entries, as your other borrowed heavily on his premise of conscious beings switching bodies.    

Second Place: TCLilly for Early Bird

Your first Classic Corner challenge attempt and you delivered an amazingly Hughes-ish entry!

Your choice of inspiration poem "To Paint A Water Lily" has more to say about dragonflies than lilies, which speaks to Nature's ability to propose more than the human mind can ever absorb with all of its goings on. To narrowly focus on one aspect is to miss out on all the rest.

You captured that beautifully by taking us on a tour of the Animal Kingdom in the early hours.

Third Place: Calamityofgin for Considering Snowdrops

It's without a doubt spilling over the rim with the essence of Hughes!

This one time only we are overlooking the lack of title and link to the inspiration poem in your entry's Notes per the guideline requirements. We understand that you may have assumed it wasn't necessary since you included the Hughes poem in your entry. You were initially knocked out of the top three because of this until we agreed upon this one time exception.

Honorable Mention: nomoth for cherubic politique

Firstly, you braved quite a lengthy, intimidating inspiration poem. Your use of assonance was exceptional!  

Secondly, as much as we want you to emulate Hughes's style, your ability to weave metaphors without the use of the word "like" is to be commended.  Hughes employs 3 instances of it in the first part of "Skylarks" alone. Once per entire poem is enough because the word rarely if ever is necessary. Hughes abused the hell out of it.  

Thirdly and Howeverly, your trademark quirky spacing somewhat detracted from the reading because we know it is nomoth and not Hughes behind the writing.

And a round of applause to everyone else who braved Hughes!

PLEASE keep in mind going forward that adherence to the competition guidelines is a sizable factor in the judging of these challenges.  

Congratulations to everyone for quality entries; thank you again for honoring the classics. We hope to see you in our latest Classic Corner challenges currently underway as of today:

Ocean Vuong
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/11513/

Gwendolyn Brooks
https://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/11510/

Poets Revenge...TClilly... congrats and deserved. I’m honored!

I agree that Ted hughes was a challenge, I tried to get into his frame of mind to write in his manner. I did alot of reading. Alot of his poems seemed to allude to events in his life, so I tried to envision that part as well.  His many metaphors chase a primal logic that he expressed in bold lines.  He is so interesting a person.

I'm so honored to win, the entries were great and interesting as well, I enjoyed them alot.  Congrats to the runners up, Calamitygin and Tclilly, for your vivid descriptions of survivalism of birds and snowdrops, and also to Nomoth for the honorable mention.

Thanks to our host Johnny for the helpful and insightful critiques and for helping us brave Hughes.

I look forward to cracking open the next classic book  (I mean tapping open) :)

so very very deserved PoetsRevenge. was so in awe how well you encapsulated and yet  broadened similar feelings i have about him. jen and TCLilly just beautiful writes. again all the entries deserve attention . and big thanks johnny for the mention and critique, super appreciated and taken on board.

Calamityofgin said:Poets Revenge...TClilly... congrats and deserved. I’m honored!

Jennifer, You did phenomenal! And we so appreciate your support of the classics.

PoetsRevenge said:I agree that Ted hughes was a challenge, I tried to get into his frame of mind to write in his manner. I did alot of reading. Alot of his poems seemed to allude to events in his life, so I tried to envision that part as well.  His many metaphors chase a primal logic that he expressed in bold lines.  He is so interesting a person.

I'm so honored to win, the entries were great and interesting as well, I enjoyed them alot.  Congrats to the runners up, Calamitygin and Tclilly, for your vivid descriptions of survivalism of birds and snowdrops, and also to Nomoth for the honorable mention.

Thanks to our host Johnny for the helpful and insightful critiques and for helping us brave Hughes.

I look forward to cracking open the next classic book  (I mean tapping open) :)

WE LOVE your support of the classics, PR. You always encapsulate the essence perfectly, which takes time and study. It truly shows that you perform both to honor these great poets.


nomoth said:so very very deserved PoetsRevenge. was so in awe how well you encapsulated and yet  broadened similar feelings i have about him. jen and TCLilly just beautiful writes. again all the entries deserve attention . and big thanks johnny for the mention and critique, super appreciated and taken on board.

nomoth you are such a humble spirit and DU joy for us both.  Thank you for accepting the critique as it was intended.

Congrats to all winners & thanks to hosts for such considered judging. Really enjoyed rediscovering T Hughes. In  my humble opinion all comps should be judged by the hosts. Rob

Strangeways_Rob said:Congrats to all winners & thanks to hosts for such considered judging. Really enjoyed rediscovering T Hughes. In  my humble opinion all comps should be judged by the hosts. Rob

We agree, Rob. If they can't decide then call on someone to help them. This throwing comps to votes and starting another immediately is ridiculous. It's like they just want to host a comp and eschew the responsibility that comes with it. Judging is not easy, and we catch some flack for our decisions; however, we do try to be as fair as possible, and typically call in a third party to confirm.  

Thank you for supporting the classics. We hope to see your return.

Ahavati said:

WE LOVE your support of the classics, PR. You always encapsulate the essence perfectly, which takes time and study. It truly shows that you perform both to honor these great poets.

Bold for emphasis, as I would be incapable running a comp of this quality and magnitude without Ahavati.

And I'm just as thankful as everyone else for the opportunity she has provided at DUP to study these great poets. I'm a better writer because of her and these challenges have resulted in most of my best poetry.  

❤📝