Winning Isn't Everything

I've belonged to MWC for a while now. It seems I joined late in October of last year, so I'm coming up to half a year there. I entered a fiction contest soon after arriving and won, but there were few entries and so…

I was goaded or threatened or something like that into entering into a poetry challenge. I am not a poet. I don't even particularly care for modern poetry with all its free verse and prose with funny line breaks. It isn't anything that I think I can do or wish to do. But to help out a friend who personally asked for a contribution, I entered.

The premise of the contest was to write a poem of praise. It was to be in praise of yourself but if that was too outré, you could write a poem about someone else. I am embarrassed by own self aggrandizing and therefore wrote a poem about someone else.

Paean of Praise

My gene pool swam the ocean from Ireland to the USA.
Speakeasies during Prohibition let the painter feed his family.
Left with four young children after his bride's untimely death.
All this is my past.

Always laughing, telling tall tales, playing the fiddle.
Playing the guitar while his children danced and sang.
Holding his family together against all odds.
All this is my past.

Tall – at least in the eyes of his children.
Daddy and Hero merged as one.
The only parent still able to shelter his precious loves.
All this is my past.

Sunny disposition even in his grief.
Hopeful and trusting in a God who stayed nearby to help.
Vivacious and companionable to friends and family.
All this is my past.

Cuddly as a bear to four lost children.
Protective as a lioness to four lost children.
Entertaining as a monkey to four lost children.
All this is my past.

Motherless children comforted by Mother Nature in disguise.
Timeless sunshine glimpsed in the ever-present smile.
Hidden tears that fall like rain.
All this is my past.

I only met him once when I was but three months old.
This hero, this father, this stubborn son of Ireland.
He has spread his gift of love into every moment of my life.
All this is my grandfather.

There were over a dozen entries. Somehow, I won. I like the feeling of what I wrote. The originator of the challenge had listed what she thought should go into a praise poem and I went topic by topic and wrote the above in less than 30 minutes and typed it up and sent it off.

Now I'm in charge of the next contest. I found out that was the punishment for winning when I won the fiction contest. I'm not sure how else one would go about continually having contests because they are a fair amount of work. You have to solicit (that should read – beg) for entries and then you have to solicit (beg, again) for people to vote. All in all, it creates quite a bit of work. I never in a million years thought that I would win a poetry contest.

What I prefer, over free verse, is the structured rhythm and rhyme of old fashioned poetry. For my contest, I am having people write sonnets. Fourteen lines in a proscribed rhyming pattern set in iambic pentameter. Poetry as Shakespeare meant it to be. You can peek at the entry requirements, if you like.