Poetry contest

Happy first of December! I thought it would be nice to do something a little different and fun this Christmas season. So we're holding the first-ever Dickensblog poetry contest.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Write a poem based on A Christmas Carol. It can be any sort of poem you like: sonnet, haiku, free verse, ballad, limerick, etc. You can post your poem in the comment section here. Your deadline is December 15, at 11:59 p.m. 

Rolley Haggard has graciously agreed to be our judge. Rolley, some of you may recall, is a longtime reader who has written poetry for Dickensblog before. I'll be sending the poems to him without names attached, so that he can judge them impartially.

First, second, and third place winners will be announced Dec. 26. The first place winner will receive a copy of Barnes & Noble's Leatherbound Classics edition of A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Stories. The second and third place winners will each receive a copy of B&N's new pocket edition of A Christmas Carol.

Good luck and have fun!

Comments

[Marian]

This sounds fun!! I'll try to get my entry in next week. :)

[Jade]

PEACE TO YOU

Peace to you,
tall children
clad
in red,
yellow, and blue
skidding and peaking
through
the snowy arborvitae.

Peace to you,
tall children
with hockey sticks
and skates.
Oh, pooh! There goes
your gliding puck
stuck
in gooey berry
muck
beneath
the snowy arborvitae.

Peace to you,
chilly-voiced
tall children
calling to each other
behind the fresh pine
as chimney clouds go sailing
and wafting
through icy white sky.

Peace and praise to you,
Purest Sky!
Hallo! Whoop! There goes the puck
gliding and flying again.
Peace to all Your falling,
skating
ever-tall children
this snowy Christmastime!

[Linda Hoyland]

“Peace on earth, good will to men,”
“Christmas joy to young and old”.
Scrooge shut out the joyful song,
All he cared about was gold.

On Christmas Eve, he felt annoyed,
So very early sought his bed;
Suddenly a ghost appeared,
Filling up his soul with dread.

Three spectres more appeared to him,
Reminding him of happier days;
Showing him his future grim
Unless he learned to change his ways.

When Scrooge awoke on Christmas Day,
His heart was filled Christmas cheer;
To others he showered peace and love
Then in all hearts, was held dear.

[eavis]

There is no glory in death
no honour to be found
in the feeble cry of a child, cold and alone
in the weeping of a mother, son lost, husband gone.
in the struggle to breathe, borne down by grey cloud.
There is nothing that savours much of youth
in the empty eyes of a child, hope long crushed
in the timid hand, held out for bread
in the anguished eyes, clouded by the scorpion's sting.

And yet
perhaps
if one knew
and, forewarned by kindly spirits
ventured to ask yet one favour more
back to the beginning, to a Christmas so long ago

There is a man who lives
he lives in London town
in a house, open to all and glowing with warmth
in a room with bustling mother, father, and halting son.
in a place where cares are lifted and burdens shared.
There is a man who dared to change his fate
in the choosing of a differing path
in the giving of himself to serve
in the laughter of bright-eyed children

And above, the spirits are content.

[Marian]

"Belle"

I have no cause to grieve;
no, not if this pursuit of wealth
replaces us, as now I leave
this distant Christmas Eve.

Happily, perhaps you'll share
your aspirations dear with her,
a Muse with shoes too great to wear,
with whom I can't compare.

You scarce recite, can hardly say
our Christmas past's forgotten vows
old promises from hopeful days
our humbler, kindred ways.

And you have made us two.
I watch you, as a shadow might,
lock all the doors to never lose
shut in this life you choose.

[Rheanna Macias (Jobey)]

Prequel

With all the homage of exiled Adam saluting in surprise 
He felt the cold that winter, the winter where visits and visions
Routed him, rousted him, forced him to decisions
By the shocking of them open and glass-polish in his eyes: 
With only Confusion, for companion; and past Sins, for provisions,
He shivered in the grey-blind blasts, blinked the flurries from his eyes.

It stung him like the stinging of the stingy stinging words 
That were the bits of broken net strung together, badly sewn,
And madly, by the keepers of his airtight childhood home;
Words warmthless as half-skeletons, words brief as the edge of a sword: 
And yet, he was no child now, and a man so "sharpish" as he was known
Could see them now as drunken rabble (but once they passed for lords). 

Then those blessed-cursed Voices (Voices near as anything they were)
Shook out water from the hot rock of him, all sun-fired in the heat, 
Made him drop ten thousand cares, left hiw the more complete--
Showed him the murmur of his daughter, her timid tiptoe on the stair,
Fastidiously un-creeted when she was only made to be discrete--
All left of the mother who'd left him not willing -- much less her!

And not least did that winter chill him like the knowledge given him
Of what it would be if he went a score more winters in like despair:
A hunchback crone dressed like a man, contemning the skin he must wear,
As skim, as flint, as miserable… (yet, horribly, not him!)
He took up at last the neglected care, and all the more embraced the air:
He could bear himself but not his own to bear that phantom limb.

The searing of a soul; ah, Friend Regret! ah, Master Pain!
But the trembling of joy is worth every tremble of fear. 
Before he could see horror as horror, his whole vision was not clear;
Before he could feel the cold, he could not enjoy a flame. 
"Fan, my dear, come and sit by me; I want you here,
I want your hand in my hand, I want your tiny head against the same!" 

[Gina]

These are all so good. I'm so impressed with the talent represented here!