Dead Poem Society, Round 3, Contest and Community Building
A Dead Poems Society Production
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After a week a steemit post is a dead man bobbing in the blockchain. Could be the finest blog ever written but there is no rewarding it. And it is not even a week; it is six and half days. I learnt recently that in the last 12 hours before pay out, a post cannot receive a monetary upvote. Another bloggers here has come up with a bit of a remedy to this situation. @whatamidoing hosts the the deadpost initiative. Here is his post recent round. There is still time to enter this week's contest.
Along this vein, I would like to host a more specific contest. I am inviting all steemian poets to drop the link to an old poem below and the . I could never choose a winner and so I won't; you will, but I will read them and upvote as many comments as I can.
Here are the rules.
- Upvote and re-esteem this post. The higher the turnout, the bigger the payout for the winners and the more people who will see and maybe upvote your comment.
- The post must be at least a week old, but the older the better.
- Depending on turnout, vote for 1-3 other entries in the comment section. Do NOT upvote the original post. That is a wasted vote. Upvote the comment here.
- I will choose from among the poems that received the most votes and best quality comments and gave the best comments and did their diligent best to upvote 1-3 other entries.
- Poems only, all forms of poetry welcomed.
- Don't vote for yourself
- The number of winners will be linked to the size of the payout. The bigger the payout, the more poems I can and will reward. This initiative is about strengthening the poetry community on steemit. But there will be at least a first place poem that receives the largest share of the payout, and then perhaps a second place, the second biggest payout and a so on.
- Winner/winners and maybe participants, depending on the size of the payout, will receive the SBD from this post.
Last week post brought in just under 0.9 SBD. I overpaid @satorid 0.1 SBD on the last post, and he most graciously returned the overpayment; so we have a pool of around 1 SBD to share among the winners ... you are all winners ... and the participants.
These people will be received the following SBD amounts:
@kilbride got the most votes and will receive 0.4
@satorid 0.2
@momzillanc 0.2
@marlyncabrera 0.2
So a scroll through your old poems and decide which poems you want to resurrect and then drop the link below. Be sure to upvote and reesteem. This post is about enriching the community. Here participation counts too:) Let's grow this thing. Good luck to you all.
This post has been selected for curation by @msp-curation by @sunravelme. It has been upvoted and will be featured in this week's Working Title post. It will also be considered for the official @minnowsupport curation post and if selected will be resteemed from the main account. Feel free to join us on Discord!
Thank you so much, @msp-curation and @sunravelme. Your support for this initiative is very much appreciated:)
Thanks for keeping this up, Pryde. And for the payout from the last one. My submission for this week asks the question: What is Love? Then, offers an answer – “It’s Not An Emotion” https://steemit.com/lovepoem/@momzillanc/it-s-not-an-emotion.
Between two lonely hearts…
a bond forged in loyalty…
a gift to birth our hope…
we find strength in honesty.
I remember this one. A wonderful piece of poetry and philosophy:)
Thanks so much, Pryde.
You are right, love is an action and a decision, and it is what keeps us all going<3
At some point I realized - it's a gift! Why do we love our children? Because we're granted this feeling, but it can be felt towards other people as well, even strangers if we make efforts of keeping our soul somewhat clean! How difficult it is to find a tiny treasure of love in a "room" full of mess, but how it shines on its place in a clean "room of soul".
And emotions come and go... They're spontaneous.
Absolutely. Emotions are ephemeral and changeable. Real Love, whether romantic or domestic or human or faith-led, is a promise between us and those we love. It’s something we promise from the heart of our souls. Emotions, I think, emerge from our chemistry and our minds.
You are right, love is an action and a decision, and it is what keeps us all going<3
Thank you.
I loved reading your poem, @momzillanc.
My favorite lines:
By this point and through these lines, your poem makes me think of that moment when two lonely people meet and discover they will have something beautiful. It's not fulfilled but it's there, beginning to happen. And I think they are going to cherish that, probably because of past heartache.
Thank you. That’s part of the point of my poem… that love is a promise we must cherish and keep working at. Too many people seem to think love is all about that passion and romance; but, that’s only the starting point, what draws us together. The promise of Love is what goes beyond passion and romance to that forever, comfortable intimacy – that’s the best part!
Haha, what a nice idea to look one more time at something we've done before))
I'm not a poet nor a native speaker of English, but after attending Poetry Class of Steem Schools on Discord for about two months, I wrote a poem that was a surprise even to me )))
Here it is, my very first poetical try: https://steemit.com/poetry/@liverussian/two-drops-of-the-same-water-my-first-attempt-of-writing-a-poem
If you hadn’t told us this was your first poem ever, let alone in English, I would have thought you’d always been a poet. This is a lovely, sweetly moving homage to your shared childhood.
(I also put this comment on your original post.)
Oh, maybe you have this impression because all the mistakes were corrected during Critique Class of Steem Schools ))) I believe, I had issues with "a million shiny pieces"...
The polished finished poem is elegant and well penned. That’s really all that matters. Well done.
We are autumn's heart;
Doesn't matter what we do,
The point is side by side.
Love this. Wonderful work. Be sure to upvote some of the entries on the page:)
Thank you, Pryde! My voting power is soooooo low, I was waiting for it to be at least ove 80 percent, that gives about a cent, haha )))
No worries ... I understand that. Just get to it when you can. The value of your upvote is not important; so much as you voted for another poet or two:)
We're tears of a cloud,
Becoming a million shiny pieces
When we hit the ground.
I just love this, it is so sweet and sad, although I read it to be tears like a rip the first time, instead of tears like drops of crying. It kind of works both ways as rain is little shred of clouds sparkling. Very impressive poetic "debut"!! <3
Oh, I'm so happy that people look at this piece from different angles! It was intended! Thank you for the read and for the deep thoughts!
I enjoyed reading your poem, @liverussian. I’d like to refer to what three images in particular made me think and feel:
For it's very visual, I imagine a myriad of memories screening on the veil. And it’s beautiful on my mind.
The many drops of water come as a reminiscence of our own childhood, a balm to heal haste, a call to enjoy early youth. Quite nostalgic and beautiful, though.
Indeed, our younger selves come to be the heart in the autumn of our lives, as they live on in our memories.
Thanks for sharing. I loved your poem.
Oh, Marlyn, honestly, that's the deepest read and the most thorough response on my writing I've ever gotten!!! And I'm genuinely expressing my gratitude to your perception of the piece, you surely managed to catch the most subtle thoughts, that were put there. I'm so amazed at your ability to feel words and what's behind them! Your last thoughts about "autumn's heart" are so poetical! You've brought your soul of a poet into my piece! Thank you so so much from all my heart for the read again!
I appreciate your gratitude, @liverussian ♥ The truth is I really connected to this piece, but that wouldn't have been possible had you not made it to really mean something as deep and touching as you certainly have.
See you here at @prydefoltz's blog and around ☻
These are my favorite lines. I remember looking over this poem in our poetry class. I really liked it then, and rereading it, I'm glad it was posted again. I think I like these two lines in particular because they kind of stand out in the poem and also summarize the poem for me in a way. To me they say that youth and one's need to explore often causes a distance between individuals.
Thank you for your double attention to the peice, Steve ) what an interesting intake, you know, I'll tell you a secret, those lines are my favourite too!!!!!!
Thank you :) Here is my entry and I will be back to upvote when it bumps up
https://steemit.com/writing/@kilbride/he
Life can be a slog, leaving us feeling burned out and left behind. But, we keep moving forward on that “hope for green.” Well penned. (I put this comment on your post as well)
Interesting that that's what you got from it. I kind of always make a joke about what seems to be a pattern in personal stories about men. I say we can just make one movie called "The Story of Men: Regret. It seems lots of 'great' men, say that they burn love, are careless with relationships, and then regret when they are older. I wrote it because I seem to date that type, and also I see the pain it seems to bring.
I understand that perspective. It is all about us. And, I can well understand that regret about relationships is endemic in the memories of old men. I often wonder if that pervasive aspect of male relationships is because They’ve been taught to value others more as receptacles for their hopes and desires, as an accompaniment to their lives, rather than as self-individualized persons equal to themselves and integral to their personal growth and well being – that’s what relationship is, after all… building connections that become integral to our well being and self-actualization. Men are expected to stand alone, impenetrable towers of their own strength; it’s difficult to create the kind of closeness we humans crave from that lofty height. I don’t really even think the issue is a gender or romantic thing; I’ve seen similar dichotomies in same sex and non-romantic relationships among men. Men so often seem to be rather lackadaisical about relationships and friendships with each other, and that often seems to translate to family and romantic relationships as well.
Perhaps my perspective is more hopeful because I’m with a man who knows how valuable relationships and love are, and how valuable the individuals in our relationships are. My husband has always been a man who values me as a person first. We both understand how precious what we found together is and understand that it won’t survive if we don’t maintain the work of relationship to keep growing together. We’ve been together over 27 years and every year finds us more in love and more devoted to each other. I hope our son is taking the lessons of our relationship to his own future relationship understanding.
You are very lucky. I have been in love and loved, but they don't have the maturity to appreciate it until it's long over. I studied biology/chem, so I hear about the biological differences, brain development etc, but I do think a very very large part of it is how we raise men in our society.
I agree we need to do better in socializing men in our society.
Ummm, I'm glad I came across your writing! I loved this poem! Hey, these are not just words.
The structure is wisely made: two parts crowned with a conclusion!
The first part opens with a young man taking from life everything: it's a firework of adventures (I like the line "everything burned" in italics, this is the key to his way of living and state of feeling) as a lot of young men, he was a rebel a misunderstood one... But there was "love".
But years go by and bring us to the second part, when he's "an old man now", but look at this: "everything is burned", what a surprise, when you burn something, it will eventually get burned and leave us with
I like the image of years passing incredibly fast, that's exactly how it feels, when you look back, especially when realize that there is still a lot to be done:
- The way you put this line is also remarkable, the word "years" stands alone, it catches our attention, it's where the accent is, followed by the longest line of the stanza (ironically, the long line of so many years passed as fast as the lightning). It feels especially strong after the image of years in the first stanza: - beautiful image! Haha, and how true this is - when we're young, we want the time to hurry...And we find ourselves on the word "But" that stands alone, it reassures - there is still hope! The way how you put this hope into words is really beautiful - "I will plant and see" - this means to make efforst, it's not just "to wait and see", but to make efforts of taking care of what is "planted"!
I don't have much voting power, sorry) my account is a microminnow)
Wow! Thank you. It feels nice to have your work appreciated and understood at this level. You say you aren't a poet, but it has little to do with training and everything to do with perception. You obviously notice the world, and vividly articulate what you see. That's a poet by any standard ;)
Wow! That what I've always thought - that I notice the world... I really enjoy diving into someone's poetry, but rarely brave enough to go and write some myself... Thank you for reassuring me! I'm still learning from you all!
Great piece. I liked how you incorporated so many poetic devices into one piece in a way that did not seem forced and instead magnified the poems affect. Really cool.
So, I don't actually know what a poetic device is. I haven't studied literature or poetry besides required courses, I have just always read a lot and written poetry since I was like 4 (the 4 year old stuff was pretty silly obviously ) I'd be curious what it is that I'm doing - if it has a name?
More people than ever are slowly but surely turning their ears toward poetry. 2 poems by me "Lost Poems and Dreams"
https://steemit.com/poetry/@satorid/lost-poems-and-dreams
Beings that commune with the stars
Planets that commune with beings
Plants that are messengers from outer space
The Legacy of the luminous dark
Our ancestors were wiser than they knew.
Wonderful work. So glad you decided to join in this week:)
thanks! yea I went away for a bit, it's always good to unplug for a bit. but its good to get back at it and ready to dance with the logos once again
Transcendent poetry. The following lines really stood out for me:
I posted this comment on your original post too
Hi ☻
Thanks, @prydefoltz for this amazing idea--and for my share :D
Here, my poem:
"Take Her"
This is gorgeous, and I also am rereading Memoirs of a Geisha (I had a long train ride and saw it on my shelf), so I've been pretty deep in thought also about what a 'wimp' Ceremoniousness is. Really beautiful, fluid language!! <3
Good read, @kilbride. Indeed, Geishas are a romanticized topic. But there's so much beauty and history involved that we can't help loving it.
and untie the blossoms of your shame,
for business is quick and is done
before it can notice the color of your bosom's
I remember this one. Such gorgeous phrasing and presentation. Brava:)
Make sure you take a moment to look at the work of others and upvote another's work:)
Sure, @prydefoltz. I'm doing it tonight :-)
Great thanks, Marlyn:)
Geisha are an interesting theme, and always bordering on the sad or tragic.
Yes, I think so, @momzillanc. Thanks for giving this piece a second chance :-) It feels good :3
These are my favorite lines. I really enjoyed the final stanza because it did a great job of tying the piece together and delivered a strong punch.
My entry. 😎 Regret
Cool contest.
Love this concept of a blue herring ... a red herring gives a false message and blue one gives a melancholic one ... I suppose. Yes, I agree, regret only so one might make better plans and then make better plans and give over to positivity:)
Nice post @prydefoltz
upvoted
Interesting project, could have other applications.