New Post: Susan McLean, Finalist, Learning to Cope Poetry Prize

Learning to Cope

She learned to cope with every trick they tried

to keep her down.  To put her in her place,

they said she was incompetent. (They lied.)

But every setback has a saving grace.

A snail must cross a field at a snail’s pace,

and yet it still may reach the other side.

Scaling each log or ditch she had to face,

she learned to cope. With every trick they tried,

her path grew more oblique.  She learned to hide

behind a noncommittal smile, erase

hints of determination.  Satisfied

to keep her down, to put her in her place,

they failed to see, at first, she’d moved a space

forward.  Just one.  No challenge to their pride,

control, or dominance.  But, just in case,

they said she was incompetent.  They lied

that her advance was due to a free ride.

“The methods that some women will embrace

to get ahead!” they muttered, narrow-eyed.

But every setback has a saving grace.

They never saw her hand concealed an ace:

persistence was the only ploy she plied.

And though she might not win the steeplechase,

with every hurdle that she took in stride      

she learned to cope.

Susan McLean

Susan McLean is an English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University. Her poems have appeared often in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, and elsewhere.

New Contest: the Ballade (Not Ballad) Contest!!!

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THE RONDEAU ROUNDUP: http://therondeauroundup.blogspot.com/

A blog for the exploration, appreciation and publication of the rondeau, rondel, roundel, rondeau redouble, rondolet, triolet, and ballade invites you to participate in its next contest: 

The Ballade (Not Ballad) Contest!

 

This contest is for the best poem written in the ballade form. A ballade (for the purposes of this contest) is a poem of 28 lines with the following rhyme scheme:

A ballade poem should have three stanzas and an envoy/ envoi. The rhyming pattern for the stanzas is ababbcbC. The rhyming pattern for the envoy is bcbC.

For more information on writing a ballade: https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/types-ballade

One of my favorite examples of a poem in this form is by Dorothy Parker:

Ballade Of A Great Weariness

There's little to have but the things I had,
There's little to bear but the things I bore.
There's nothing to carry and naught to add,
And glory to Heaven, I paid the score.
There's little to do but I did before,
There's little to learn but the things I know;
And this is the sum of a lasting lore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

And couldn't it be I was young and mad
If ever my heart on my sleeve I wore?
There's many to claw at a heart unclad,
And little the wonder it ripped and tore.
There's one that'll join in their push and roar,
With stories to jabber, and stones to throw;
He'll fetch you a lesson that costs you sore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

So little I'll offer to you, my lad;
It's little in loving I set my store.
There's many a maid would be flushed and glad,
And better you'll knock at a kindlier door.
I'll dig at my lettuce, and sweep my floor,
Forever, forever I'm done with woe.
And happen I'll whistle about my chore,
"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."

L'ENVOI

Oh, beggar or prince, no more, no more!
Be off and away with your strut and show.
The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe!

Contest opens June 15, 2017 and closes August 1, 2017.  The winner will receive $100 and publication on the Rondeau Roundup blog.  For this contest, no other form will be accepted (we’re looking for the French form here, not the English story-telling form).  Contest results will be posted on or before August 15, 2017.  Contest is free to enter. To participate, send one and only one ballade to rondeauroundupATgmailDOTcom in the body of your email.

Presenting the first-place winner of the Learning to Cope Prize!

Rondeau Redoublé: Final Stage

I pray I never do those sorts of things

that made me once deride and dread old age —

the trivial and pointless ramblings

that signal we’ve come to the final stage.

The telltale signs and acts by which we gauge

decline: saving scraps of paper, bits of strings,

dozing off halfway down each page.

I pray I never do those sorts of things.

I pray that I can curb my mutterings

and sotto voce scolds, restrain my rage

at every new contraption progress brings,

that made me once deride and dread old age,

weather the trials and traumas that presage

the end: the mind’s demise, the wanderings,

the fears no cheerful banter can assuage,

the trivial and pointless ramblings

of friends, their lapses and imaginings.

I pray to find the wit and will to wage

defense against outrageous fortune’s slings

that signal I’ve come to the final stage.

Though each of us may play both fool and sage,

Though darkness may be gathering in the wings,

This is no time to rest, to disengage,

no time to give up on our hungerings.

I pray I never do.

--Toni Clark

Antonia (Toni) Clark is a medical writer, editor, poet, and teacher, and she co-administers an online poetry forum, The Waters. She is the author of a chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Anderbo, The Cortland Review, Eclectica, The Missouri Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, and Softblow. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.

Learning to Cope Poetry Prize (Rondeau Redouble)

Sponsored by the Rondeau Roundup Blog

  

Dear Entrants:

I received so many fine examples of this complex form that I had to invent new categories for the winning poets:

Winner: $100 and publication on the Rondeau Roundup Blog

Toni Clark, for “Rondeau Redouble: Final Stage”

Finalists:  $25 and publication on the Rondeau Roundup Blog

Susan MacLean, for “Learning to Cope”

Tom Hunley, for “God’s Lonely Man”

Uche Ogbuji, for “Hellgate”

Publication Awards: Publication on the Rondeau Roundup Blog:

Tiel Aisha Ansari, for “How Our New Immigration Policies are Like the Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef”

Joan Wiese Johannes, for “A Blooming Scandal”

I so enjoyed reading these poems—the level of craft was so very high!  Thanks to all the folks who submitted poems for consideration.

The poems will be on the blog throughout the month of May.

Thanks so much,

Allison Joseph, Editor

The Rondeau Roundup

Rondeau Fridays!

First in a series of new rondeaus!  Here's a new one by poet Jeff Santosusso!

 

 

 

 

Perfect Circles 

In rotation, ankles and feet

pedal the bicycle, athlete

in rhythm, turning like the wheels,

geometric precision, feel

of perfection with her heartbeat.

Balance, left and right, in replete

bilateral harmony, feat

of grace, constant motion, ideal

in rotation.

To climb the hill, rise in the seat,

exchanging downbeat and upbeat,

posture more upright, toes and heels

thrusting, knees and thighs. Spin appeals

to the sense of rising, complete

in rotation.

 

 

 

 

Jeff Santosuosso is a business consultant and award-winning poet living in Pensacola, FL.  A member of the Florida State Poets Society, he is Editor-in-Chief of panoplyzine.com, an online journal dedicated to poetry and short prose.  His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in San Pedro River Review, The Lake (UK), Red Fez, Stories of Music, Vol. 2, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, Texas Poetry Calendar, Avocet, First Literary Review – East, and other online and print publications.

MORE RONDEAUS 2017

English 352, the Forms of Poetry class I teach at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is up to the part of the semester where we talk about repeating forms.

Today, we talked about the rondeau. We looked at two famous examples of the form--Paul Laurence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" and "In Flanders Fields" by Lt. John McCrae.

Together, we wrote a semi-scandalous rondeau:

Behind Closed Doors: Apt 2B

Behind closed doors, the lovers lie
in tangled bed sheets, getting high
forgetting all their debts and cares
and acting like they're millionaires--
not caring if they live or die.

Between the sheets, they are not shy:
there's nothing that these two won't try.
They act as if their life's a dare
behind closed doors.

The neighbors hear their passion-cries
and aggravated, yell out "Why!"
"The noise these two make isn't fair--
for heaven's sake, there's kids out here!"
But they don't care, off in the sky
behind closed doors.

The next session, we'll have an in-class rondeau contest, with the results to be posted here.

The Learning to Cope Poetry Prize Seeks Entries

Relaunching the Rondeau Roundup Blog with the Learning to Cope Poetry Prize!

http://therondeauroundup.blogspot.com

The Rondeau Roundup blog is having a contest for the best poem in the Rondeau Redouble  form!  Our inspiration is the classic poem in the form by Wendy Cope:

https://genius.com/Wendy-cope-rondeau-redouble-annotated

Deadline: submitted by April 3, 2017.

Contest Rules:

Only one rondeau redouble may be submitted per person. No entry fee. Top five poems will be published on the blog (therondeauroundup.blogspot.com). The first place rondeau redouble will also receive a $100 gift card from Barnes and Noble.

For this contest, I'm looking for rondeau redoubles that follow the set rhyme scheme, as given at 

http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/1382-rondeau-family-of-forms-includingtrioletvillanelle/


Examples of the form: 
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sophie_hannah/poems/22453
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44836
https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/2016/10/02/from-the-archives-rondeau-redouble-by-dorothy-nimmo/

No other poetic form will be accepted for this contest. 

Rondeau Redoubles inspired by themes found in the poems of Wendy Cope particularly welcome.

To enter, send a single rondeau redouble

rondeauroundupATgmailDOTcom (replace AT with @) by April 3, 2017.

Winners will be announced on the Rondeau Roundup Blog on April 15, 2017

.