The first two contests at the Rondeau Roundup have been rondeau contests, so it's time to mix it up a bit with another form.
The next contest at the Rondeau Roundup is a Triolet Challenge!
Not familiar with the form? It's an eight-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme:
explanation courtesy
Triolet
The features of the Triolet are:
* 8 lines.
* Two rhymes.
* 5 of the 8 lines are repeated or refrain lines.
* First line repeats at the 4th and 7th lines.
* Second line repeats at the 8th line.
* Rhyme scheme (where an upper-case letter indicates the appearance of an identical line, while a lower-case letter indicates a rhyme with each line designated by the same lower-case or upper-case letter):
A
B
a - Rhymes with 1st line.
A - Identical to 1st line.
a - Rhymes with 1st line.
b - Rhymes with 2nd line.
A - Identical to 1st line.
B - Identical to 2nd line.
Here's another explanation, courtesy poets.org
Triolet
For this contest, I'll accept two(*2*) triolets per entrant, since the form is only eight lines long. For this contest, there is no theme, but only triolets can win. No other form will be accepted. There is no entry fee.
First prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com
Up to five More than Honorable Mentions will also be chosen to appear on the Rondeau Roundup Blog.
Contest opens December 1, 2009 and closes December 28, 2009. Winners will be notified by January 15, 2010.
Send your triolets to
rondeauroundup(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @)
in the body of an e-mail message.
No attachments, please. If entering two triolets, put both in the same e-mail.
Here's a sample triolet by your Rondeau mistress to give you an idea of what the form can do:
Triolet for Janis
A Today I need your Texas wail,
B your ragged voice of pain and hurt;
a I need to walk your lonely trail.
A Today I need your Texas wail
a to buoy me up when I grow frail,
b to pick me up from ash and dirt.
A Today I need your Texas wail,
B that ragged voice of pain and hurt.
Allison Joseph
(rhyme scheme marked next to poem for illustrative purposes; you need not include it with your submission)
Monday, November 9, 2009
Autumn Rondeau Contest: More than Honorable Mentions!
Apologies for the delay in getting the Autumn Rondeau Contest More than Honorable Mentions up on the blog! Here they are--you will agree they were worth the wait:
Oak Tree Chronicle
Oak leaves hang on, blithely outride
the wind, swaying dun-colored, dried.
Acorns scatter in jazzy rounds
of random drumming on the ground,
the squirrels’ come-and-get-it guide.
Though almost in tatters beside
birches gorgeous in gold as brides
papery yellows swirling down,
oak leaves hang on.
School kids shuffle kicking sky high
red mauve confetti as they glide
laugh and leap into crackling sounds.
Hickory, maple, jumbled mounds
raked and vacuumed, dumped, nullified.
Oak leaves hang on.
Charlotte Mandel
Bio: Charlotte Mandel's seventh book of poetry ROCK VEIN SKY (Midmarch Arts Press) was listed as a Best Poetry Book Read for Fall 2008 by Monserrat Review. Previous titles include two poem-novellas of feminist biblical revision, The Life of Mary, and The Marriages of Jacob. She recently retired from teaching poetry writing for several years at Barnard College Center for Research on Women. Visit her at Charlotte Mandel.
Fall Rondeau
It’s fall. I’m knitting pairs of winter socks
and trying not to see the veeing flocks
fleeing South. Traitors. It’s not cold
yet. The locals have just begun to fold
away the lawn chairs, to pull up the docks.
Instead of raking, or taking rambling walks
I sit outside, stitch and purl the sumac’s
flaming red, the elm’s glowing gold.
It’s fall I’m knitting
into these socks. My Southern blood balks
at the Midwestern winter coming. It stalks
my every thought. And yet, each sock that’s rolled
off my needles staves off winter’s toehold.
It’s fall. I’m knitting.
Heidi Czerwiec
Bio: Heidi Czerwiec is assistant professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of North Dakota, where she is the Director of the annual UND Writers Conference. She is the author of Hiking the Maze (Finishing Line Press, 2009), the recipient of a 2009 Bush Foundation/Dakota Creative Connections artist grant, and has poems and translations published or forthcoming in Measure, Nimrod, Evansville Review, Southern Indiana Review, Hunger Mountain, and International Poetry Review.
Rondeau: Autumn Leaves
These autumn leaves -- they burn citrine
As pumpkins glow. The stiff rake leans
Upon the apple tree, its fruit
Decayed and brown along the roots.
We dress warm, groom the backyard clean --
We make three heaps, breathe the pristine
Air. The sky: fat, a nectarine --
Now blackens to a crown of soot.
These autumn leaves --
It's all we care for, all we've seen
All day. Our mother says fifteen
Minutes and to wipe off our boots
Before coming in. But we hoot
Like imps; burst, like a time machine,
These autumn leaves.
William Soule
Bio: William Soule is a young poet currently living in Utah. His works have appeared in Read This Magazine, elimae, Tattoo Highway, and the delinquent, among others — he is also a former One Night Stanzas Featured Poet. He runs the webzine Clearfield Review, and works as a Literature Gallery Director for artist-networking site deviantART.
Texan's Lament
I miss the hues of death, the flaming trees,
the rotting sweetness carried by the breeze.
Escaping winter meant I made a trade -
I had to give up seeing summer fade -
surrendering fall to avoid the freeze.
I even miss the mold that made me sneeze -
the microbes in the air that made me wheeze.
Perhaps up north is where I should have stayed.
I miss the hues of death.
The faded green leaves here do not appease
my need for change, a turning climate's tease.
This was my choice - can't say I was betrayed;
and yet each year I find myself dismayed
when autumn does not visit me with ease.
I miss the hues of death.
Dorla Moorehouse
Bio: Dorla Moorehouse is a writer, dancer, and bookseller living in Austin, Texas. When not pursuing one of these three careers, she serves as the poetry editor of Gloomcupboard. You can find out more about her work at her blog, Dorla's Poetry and Prose.
A Distant Line of Hills
The air is clear, and leaves, undone,
drift in zigzags – russet, crimson.
Wild purple phlox and goldenrod
in rearview mirrors wave and nod,
like summer’s parting guests. And on
the complicated road we run
we take a deeper breath. The sun
ignites a sumac’s velvet pods.
The air is clear
and apple-crisp; light is honey
on tree-trunks in the afternoon.
We didn’t know, and find it odd:
behind the slowly molting woods
lies a long and low horizon.
The air is clear.
David Eye
Bio: David Eye earned a midlife MFA at Syracuse University in 2008. This followed a 17-year career in the theatre, and four years in the military, so he may be the only poet who has spent time in both the U.S. Army and Cats. While at SU, he garnered awards for his work as a writing instructor, and interned at BOA Editions, Ltd. His poems have appeared in Waccamaw Journal, Stone Canoe, roger, and Critical Encounters with Texts, a university reader. This fall, David is teaching English composition at St. John's University and will be conducting workshops at Manhattan College. He is completing his first book of poems, mostly during the hour-and-a-half commute from Harlem to Staten Island.
Oak Tree Chronicle
Oak leaves hang on, blithely outride
the wind, swaying dun-colored, dried.
Acorns scatter in jazzy rounds
of random drumming on the ground,
the squirrels’ come-and-get-it guide.
Though almost in tatters beside
birches gorgeous in gold as brides
papery yellows swirling down,
oak leaves hang on.
School kids shuffle kicking sky high
red mauve confetti as they glide
laugh and leap into crackling sounds.
Hickory, maple, jumbled mounds
raked and vacuumed, dumped, nullified.
Oak leaves hang on.
Charlotte Mandel
Bio: Charlotte Mandel's seventh book of poetry ROCK VEIN SKY (Midmarch Arts Press) was listed as a Best Poetry Book Read for Fall 2008 by Monserrat Review. Previous titles include two poem-novellas of feminist biblical revision, The Life of Mary, and The Marriages of Jacob. She recently retired from teaching poetry writing for several years at Barnard College Center for Research on Women. Visit her at Charlotte Mandel.
Fall Rondeau
It’s fall. I’m knitting pairs of winter socks
and trying not to see the veeing flocks
fleeing South. Traitors. It’s not cold
yet. The locals have just begun to fold
away the lawn chairs, to pull up the docks.
Instead of raking, or taking rambling walks
I sit outside, stitch and purl the sumac’s
flaming red, the elm’s glowing gold.
It’s fall I’m knitting
into these socks. My Southern blood balks
at the Midwestern winter coming. It stalks
my every thought. And yet, each sock that’s rolled
off my needles staves off winter’s toehold.
It’s fall. I’m knitting.
Heidi Czerwiec
Bio: Heidi Czerwiec is assistant professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of North Dakota, where she is the Director of the annual UND Writers Conference. She is the author of Hiking the Maze (Finishing Line Press, 2009), the recipient of a 2009 Bush Foundation/Dakota Creative Connections artist grant, and has poems and translations published or forthcoming in Measure, Nimrod, Evansville Review, Southern Indiana Review, Hunger Mountain, and International Poetry Review.
Rondeau: Autumn Leaves
These autumn leaves -- they burn citrine
As pumpkins glow. The stiff rake leans
Upon the apple tree, its fruit
Decayed and brown along the roots.
We dress warm, groom the backyard clean --
We make three heaps, breathe the pristine
Air. The sky: fat, a nectarine --
Now blackens to a crown of soot.
These autumn leaves --
It's all we care for, all we've seen
All day. Our mother says fifteen
Minutes and to wipe off our boots
Before coming in. But we hoot
Like imps; burst, like a time machine,
These autumn leaves.
William Soule
Bio: William Soule is a young poet currently living in Utah. His works have appeared in Read This Magazine, elimae, Tattoo Highway, and the delinquent, among others — he is also a former One Night Stanzas Featured Poet. He runs the webzine Clearfield Review, and works as a Literature Gallery Director for artist-networking site deviantART.
Texan's Lament
I miss the hues of death, the flaming trees,
the rotting sweetness carried by the breeze.
Escaping winter meant I made a trade -
I had to give up seeing summer fade -
surrendering fall to avoid the freeze.
I even miss the mold that made me sneeze -
the microbes in the air that made me wheeze.
Perhaps up north is where I should have stayed.
I miss the hues of death.
The faded green leaves here do not appease
my need for change, a turning climate's tease.
This was my choice - can't say I was betrayed;
and yet each year I find myself dismayed
when autumn does not visit me with ease.
I miss the hues of death.
Dorla Moorehouse
Bio: Dorla Moorehouse is a writer, dancer, and bookseller living in Austin, Texas. When not pursuing one of these three careers, she serves as the poetry editor of Gloomcupboard. You can find out more about her work at her blog, Dorla's Poetry and Prose.
A Distant Line of Hills
The air is clear, and leaves, undone,
drift in zigzags – russet, crimson.
Wild purple phlox and goldenrod
in rearview mirrors wave and nod,
like summer’s parting guests. And on
the complicated road we run
we take a deeper breath. The sun
ignites a sumac’s velvet pods.
The air is clear
and apple-crisp; light is honey
on tree-trunks in the afternoon.
We didn’t know, and find it odd:
behind the slowly molting woods
lies a long and low horizon.
The air is clear.
David Eye
Bio: David Eye earned a midlife MFA at Syracuse University in 2008. This followed a 17-year career in the theatre, and four years in the military, so he may be the only poet who has spent time in both the U.S. Army and Cats. While at SU, he garnered awards for his work as a writing instructor, and interned at BOA Editions, Ltd. His poems have appeared in Waccamaw Journal, Stone Canoe, roger, and Critical Encounters with Texts, a university reader. This fall, David is teaching English composition at St. John's University and will be conducting workshops at Manhattan College. He is completing his first book of poems, mostly during the hour-and-a-half commute from Harlem to Staten Island.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Autumn Rondeau Contest: Winner
Congrats to Janet McCann, who I've chosen as the winner of the Rondeau Roundup's Autumn Rondeau contest for her elegiac poem "Rondeau."
We walk through your city, this place where
years ago you breathed electric air
talked God all night with friends and called it heaven.
Now streets are lined with Starbucks, 7-11.
We walk through your city.
You look around for places that aren’t there,
the old bookstore, the Golden Chair
Saloon, the grocery, the Lucky Seven--
we walk through your city
which seems like nothing much, surely nowhere
one would remember. An old pair
of lovers quarrels, breaks apart. Not even
a bird sings in the autumn cold. Wind-driven
walkers hasten home. The trees are bare.
We walk through your city.
Janet McCann
BIO:
Janet McCann is professor of English at Texas A&M University, where she has taught since 1969. Her poems have appeared in New York Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry Australia, New Letters and other literary reviews and anthologies. She received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1989..
Friday, October 16, 2009
Autumn Rondeau Contest: Winners!
Sorry for the slight delay on the results of the Autumn Rondeau contest.
Here are your winners:
Winner: Janet McCann for "Rondeau"
More than Honorable Mentions went to William Soule, Dorla Moorehouse, David B Eye, Charlotte Mandel and Heidi Czerwiec.
The winning rondeau will be posted here tomorrow, with the More than Honorable mentions following soon after!
Thanks to everyone who entered!
Keep writing those rondeaus!
Here are your winners:
Winner: Janet McCann for "Rondeau"
More than Honorable Mentions went to William Soule, Dorla Moorehouse, David B Eye, Charlotte Mandel and Heidi Czerwiec.
The winning rondeau will be posted here tomorrow, with the More than Honorable mentions following soon after!
Thanks to everyone who entered!
Keep writing those rondeaus!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Contest Now Closed: Entries Look Great
The entry period for the Rondeau Roundup's Autumn Rondeau contest is now closed. Thanks so much to everyone who entered, especially those who pointed out the error in the e-mail address for sending entries. Despite that error, entries were numerous! I received over 35 entries for this particular challenge.
Results of the contest will be posted here on the blog on October 15, 2009.
If you missed the contest deadline this time, don't despair! Another contest will be launched soon.
Results of the contest will be posted here on the blog on October 15, 2009.
If you missed the contest deadline this time, don't despair! Another contest will be launched soon.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Autumn Rondeau Contest: No Entry Fee! (Deadline Extended!)
Thanks to those eagle-eyed readers of this blog who spotted the typo in the e-mail address for submissions. Because of that typo, I'm extending the deadline. Thanks for your patience!
The Rondeau Roundup is looking forward to fall colors, warm sweaters, and mellow sips of cider by the fireplace. To welcome in Fall 2009, the Rondeau Roundup blog is having a contest for the best rondeau on the topic of AUTUMN submitted by October 2, 2009.
Contest Rules:
Only one rondeau may be submitted per person. No entry fee. Top five rondeaus will be published on the blog (therondeauroundup.blogspot.com). The first place rondeau will also receive a $35 gift certificate from Amazon.com
For this contest, I'm looking for rondeaus that follow the standard definition, as given on poets.org
"The rondeau’s form is not difficult to recognize: as it is known and practiced today, it is composed of fifteen lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. The rentrement consists of the first few words or the entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third stanzas. Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows (R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR."
Examples of the form: "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
No other poetic form will be accepted for this contest. Non-rhyming rondeaus can be entered, but the blog moderator's preference is for rhymed and metered rondeaus.
To enter, send a single rondeau on the topic of AUTUMN to
rondeauroundup(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @) by October 2, 2009.
Winners will be announced on the Rondeau Roundup Blog on October 15, 2009.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Love Rondeau Contest More-than-Honorable Mentions!
Here are the poems that were chosen as "More-than-Honorable Mentions" in the Rondeau Roundup's Love Rondeau Contest! Enjoy!
Spin Cycle
Love tumbles us through mundane life,
a rolling cylinder, we dive
into the dirty clothes we wash.
The scent of soap cuts clean across
daily bores of husband and wife—
a cotton kiss on pillows rife
with surprise in a rigid hive.
The wash, dry, fold, so far from posh.
Love tumbles us
into breaking, spinning alive
in cycles that turn us in strife,
foggy suds that leave us awash.
Each feeling we coddled and tossed
settles, fresh snap as you arrive
love tumbles us.
Tara Betts
My, What Big Wishes I Had
I could not calculate my nature then,
too stunned by street and kitchen din.
Oh, the summer city bruised but did not
burn me, the night’s load of slushy heat caught
by sooty screens that let no breezes in.
That was before your autumn weather’s spin
undid me, its blue, lake-bitten wind,
chrome-dented light, and all its heart-cold plot.
I could not calculate my nature then.
No taffeta and locket, my old friend,
no sweet and butter-crumble, no bride, when
I thought nothing mattered but a love knot.
Loving you was always the long-shot,
a blind bet, underlay, the dividend
I could not calculate.
Susan Elbe
We Love As You Do
We love as you do, more or less:
The careless talk, the bland caress,
Selective ear, ironic brow,
Companion silences—and how
We waste our weekends, you can guess.
We do not hunger to transgress.
Although we’re still, with some success,
Denied a sanctioned marriage vow,
We love as you do.
Lost Love, in Memoriam
October leaves brush by the door.
I hardly recall what I wore
yesterday, yet fifteen years comes
back easily enough--a pet, some
unwanted but familiar chore
to break up the afternoon before
I accomplish too much. Before
I can savor autumn's sweet crumb,
October leaves.
Cider, gourds, dried corn are no more
than dreams, figments, epitaphs or
the palest ghost of bubblegum
on his desk. Lost, my hushed succumb
to kisses by the sycamore.
October leaves.
R. Elena Prieto
It Isn't What I Thought
It isn’t what I thought. It can’t compare
with the early days, she said, so don’t despair
when snooze is all you do in bed, and lust,
if it exists, turns out to be a bust
because equipment fails or needs repair.
It’s natural. Attraction fades. Prepare
yourself for less romance with age and share
a deeper love. Don’t worry. You’ll adjust.
It isn’t what I thought:
He’s at his sexiest with silver hair,
my menopause is freeing. Our kids declare
us old and passionless as they combust
with hormones, assuming that the thrust
of us is talk, now, and sex is rare –
it isn’t.
Spin Cycle
Love tumbles us through mundane life,
a rolling cylinder, we dive
into the dirty clothes we wash.
The scent of soap cuts clean across
daily bores of husband and wife—
a cotton kiss on pillows rife
with surprise in a rigid hive.
The wash, dry, fold, so far from posh.
Love tumbles us
into breaking, spinning alive
in cycles that turn us in strife,
foggy suds that leave us awash.
Each feeling we coddled and tossed
settles, fresh snap as you arrive
love tumbles us.
Tara Betts
Bio: Tara Betts is the author of Arc and Hue. Tara is a Cave Canem fellow and a graduate of the New England College MFA Program. She currently teaches at Rutgers University and leads community-based workshops with teens and other groups. Tara's work has appeared in Essence, Black Renaissance Noire, Hanging Loose, Ninth Letter,Obsidian III, Callaloo, and Columbia Poetry Review, Gathering Ground, Bum Rush the Page, and both Spoken Word Revolution anthologies. She is also a poetry editor for The November 3rd Club, an online journal of political writing.
My, What Big Wishes I Had
I could not calculate my nature then,
too stunned by street and kitchen din.
Oh, the summer city bruised but did not
burn me, the night’s load of slushy heat caught
by sooty screens that let no breezes in.
That was before your autumn weather’s spin
undid me, its blue, lake-bitten wind,
chrome-dented light, and all its heart-cold plot.
I could not calculate my nature then.
No taffeta and locket, my old friend,
no sweet and butter-crumble, no bride, when
I thought nothing mattered but a love knot.
Loving you was always the long-shot,
a blind bet, underlay, the dividend
I could not calculate.
Susan Elbe
Bio: Susan Elbe is the author of Eden in the Rearview Mirror (Word Press) which received Honorable Mention for the Posner Book-Length Poetry Award, and a chapbook, Light Made from Nothing (Parallel Press). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Ascent, Blackbird, Diode, Ocho, MARGIE, and North American Review. Her work has also been widely anthologized, including in A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women's Poetry (Calyx Books), On Retirement: 75 Poems (University of Iowa Press), and Eating the Pure Light: Homage to Thomas McGrath (The Backwaters Press). She currently works as a Webmaster in Madison, Wisconsin. Her web site is www.susanelbe.com.
We Love As You Do
We love as you do, more or less:
The careless talk, the bland caress,
Selective ear, ironic brow,
Companion silences—and how
We waste our weekends, you can guess.
We do not hunger to transgress.
Although we’re still, with some success,
Denied a sanctioned marriage vow,
We love as you do.
We bicker, misconstrue, express
ambivalence when we undress.
Think mainly of yourself if now
We lobby leaders to allow
Our share of that dull happiness
We love as you do.
Buzz Mauro
ambivalence when we undress.
Think mainly of yourself if now
We lobby leaders to allow
Our share of that dull happiness
We love as you do.
Buzz Mauro
Bio: Buzz Mauro received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tampa Review,River Styx, NOON, Poet Lore, and other magazines, and is currently featured on www.barcelonareview.com. He can be reached at buzz.mauro@comcast.net.
Lost Love, in Memoriam
October leaves brush by the door.
I hardly recall what I wore
yesterday, yet fifteen years comes
back easily enough--a pet, some
unwanted but familiar chore
to break up the afternoon before
I accomplish too much. Before
I can savor autumn's sweet crumb,
October leaves.
Cider, gourds, dried corn are no more
than dreams, figments, epitaphs or
the palest ghost of bubblegum
on his desk. Lost, my hushed succumb
to kisses by the sycamore.
October leaves.
R. Elena Prieto
Bio: R. Elena Prieto is a graduate of the creative writing program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Prior to being published by Rondeau Roundup, her work has appeared in Compass Rose, both online and in print.
It Isn't What I Thought
It isn’t what I thought. It can’t compare
with the early days, she said, so don’t despair
when snooze is all you do in bed, and lust,
if it exists, turns out to be a bust
because equipment fails or needs repair.
It’s natural. Attraction fades. Prepare
yourself for less romance with age and share
a deeper love. Don’t worry. You’ll adjust.
It isn’t what I thought:
He’s at his sexiest with silver hair,
my menopause is freeing. Our kids declare
us old and passionless as they combust
with hormones, assuming that the thrust
of us is talk, now, and sex is rare –
it isn’t.
Marybeth Rua-Larsen
Bio: Marybeth Rua-Larsen lives on the south coast of Massachusetts. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in: Measure, 14 by 14, Soundzine, The Recusant, The Raintown Review, Two Review and The Worcester Review, among others.
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