Under the Boardwalk: Summer Poetry Contest

[Angeline]

I'm quoting myself for Angeline's benefit.

A googly a bosie or a chinaman are all cricketing terms:

1 If a right handed slow bowler spins the ball so that it turns from left to right on pitching, that's called a leg break. If the bowler twists his hand around so that the ball comes out of the back of his hand it will turn from right to left, that's called a googly and is considered the height of cunning. In Australia the googly is called a bosie (after its inventor Bernard Bosanquet)

2. If a left hander tries to bowl with a googly action the final result spins the opposite way to the googly and this, a chinaman if successful, is almost unplayable.

If you are really interested I'll also explain what a yorker, leg cutter, off cutter, bouncer, beamer and seamer are!

I do however draw the line at explaining in-swing, out-swing and particularly reverse-swing which though it is hard to believe was first taught to innocent Englishmen by an American called John Bart King.

Back to the poetry perhaps.

Ha! I'm a Chinaman AND a Jew. Weird combo but I'm far from the first! Actually I was taught (by my dad) to keep my wrist rigid and straight when I throw a bowling ball. But I am a lefty and it always seems no matter how straight I hold my wrist, the ball will curve to the left. That's known here as a "left hook" and to compensate, I stand a bit to the right when I throw. I'm not bad at it either once I make that little adjustment.

And much as I love you please don't explain those other terms as I will be lost, lost I tell you! Jazz I know, sports (except for baseball which I love), not so much.

Nice to see you posting.

 

[Angeline]

Summer Poetry contest

We've passed the deadline so no more submissions please. Any poems we receive at this point will be politely returned to you.

We have 20 (!) contest entries. It will take me a day or two to get them all sorted and posted in threads. Each thread will have a poll and you'll vote for the poem you think is best in the thread. Please vote in every thread so that all poems have an equal chance of winning. Your local poets will thank you for it! You can continue to use this thread for contest discussion. Please don't post in the poem threads. If you do, your post(s) will be moved to this thread.

The poems will be identified by number and title (if no title was submitted, we'll call them Untitled. (Genius, eh?) Names will be revealed after a contest winner is announced.

I'll try to get them up by tonight but we'll see. (I have a bunch of non-Lit things I need to do today).

Again, good luck to all and thank you for participating!

 

[butters]

But if Angeline bowled with a left curve it would'nt be a googly or even a bosie, but a chinaman.

gawd, it's all cricket to me

can't wait to read the entries!

 

[The Poets]

Getting ready to start posting the entries. I have five threads and each needs a poll added so if it seems to be going a bit slowly hang on. It'll get there (I'm also cooking dinner so there's also that...).

 

[Angeline]

Voting is up!

And I see people have started voting. That's great. The polls will be open until the 23rd (one week from today), so please be sure to vote in all five (phew) semi-finalist threads.

 

[butters]

And I see people have started voting. That's great. The polls will be open until the 23rd (one week from today), so please be sure to vote in all five (phew) semi-finalist threads.

great job, Angiebaby. time-consuming, nit-picky work for which i'm sure everyone here thanks you.

what a great bunch of entries, too. it's been a pleasure reading them all.

 

[Angeline]

great job, Angiebaby. time-consuming, nit-picky work for which i'm sure everyone here thanks you.

what a great bunch of entries, too. it's been a pleasure reading them all.

Thanks. I know some people are great with V-Bulletin code but I am not one of them. Words I like, coding and checking make me crazy. So I am very happy to have that task done! And what a wonderful batch of poems, eh? A variety of approaches, some more successful than others imo, but quite a few strong ones. It won't be easy to choose one winner.

 

[HarryHill]

great job, Angiebaby. time-consuming, nit-picky work for which i'm sure everyone here thanks you.

what a great bunch of entries, too. it's been a pleasure reading them all.

..
Yes, well done, with the exception of that one wandering thread. All's right now, and square. Think I've sussed a couple out. Plenty to read in the forum.

 

[Angeline]

..
Yes, well done, with the exception of that one wandering thread. All's right now, and square. Think I've sussed a couple out. Plenty to read in the forum.

You must have been watching closely. My computer crashed after I set up the third or fourth thread but before I had a chance to add the poll. You can't add a poll as an edit. So I had to move that thread to the moderators' forum and make it anew so it had a poll. And then I had to go back and correct the links in the other threads. It was a bit trying.

 

[pinkcherry]

Thank you for all your work on this contest, Angeline. It is so hard to choose!

 

[Angeline]

Thank you for all your work on this contest, Angeline. It is so hard to choose!

I agree.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thank goodness I got my browser problems sorted in time to vote!

 

[Angeline]

Thank goodness I got my browser problems sorted in time to vote!

Good! I saw that you were battling it out with the browser in your comments on FB. I'm not 100% happy with the five different threads but I think it was the fairest way to do it. I could have done four threads but I think that would have made choosing even harder.

 

[butters]

some of the voting's very close, Angeline. what happens if two or three poems get the same number of votes in the semis - will more than 5 go through to the finals?

 

[Angeline]

some of the voting's very close, Angeline. what happens if two or three poems get the same number of votes in the semis - will more than 5 go through to the finals?

We will see how it goes. In the past when this has happened, a few times, we usually brought in a team of three tiebreakers. I have not voted and I don't know if bronze has or not. I am pretty sure neither Lauren Hynde nor Laurel has voted either. So we can do that if necessary, find some tiebreaker voters. I would rather not vote since I know who wrote what, but if it comes to that I think most people here who know me know that I'd vote based on my opinion of a poem's quality and not who wrote what. But I'll try to find others first. I doubt it'll be a problem.

And the voting in the finals round will be public (which has also been standard for these contests) to try and ensure that people aren't pulling in their friends or their alts to bump up their numbers. But you know all this Ms. Former Forum Mod.

One thing I can say with utmost certainty is that there will be five finalists and one thread.

 

[butters]

We will see how it goes. In the past when this has happened, a few times, we usually brought in a team of three tiebreakers. I have not voted and I don't know if bronze has or not. I am pretty sure neither Lauren Hynde nor Laurel has voted either. So we can do that if necessary, find some tiebreaker voters. I would rather not vote since I know who wrote what, but if it comes to that I think most people here who know me know that I'd vote based on my opinion of a poem's quality and not who wrote what. But I'll try to find others first. I doubt it'll be a problem.

And the voting in the finals round will be public (which has also been standard for these contests) to try and ensure that people aren't pulling in their friends or their alts to bump up their numbers. But you know all this Ms. Former Forum Mod.

One thing I can say with utmost certainty is that there will be five finalists and one thread.

you could be trusted to vote for someone else's over your own if you thought it a better poem - which is exactly what i would do, too.

bring on the final 5! as for the weather, it's certainly in keeping with the contest title

 

[UnderYourSpell]

We will see how it goes. In the past when this has happened, a few times, we usually brought in a team of three tiebreakers. I have not voted and I don't know if bronze has or not. I am pretty sure neither Lauren Hynde nor Laurel has voted either. So we can do that if necessary, find some tiebreaker voters. I would rather not vote since I know who wrote what, but if it comes to that I think most people here who know me know that I'd vote based on my opinion of a poem's quality and not who wrote what. But I'll try to find others first. I doubt it'll be a problem.

And the voting in the finals round will be public (which has also been standard for these contests) to try and ensure that people aren't pulling in their friends or their alts to bump up their numbers. But you know all this Ms. Former Forum Mod.

One thing I can say with utmost certainty is that there will be five finalists and one thread.

I for one trust the integrity of all the above mentioned if a tiebreaker situation arises

 

[Angeline]

you could be trusted to vote for someone else's over your own if you thought it a better poem - which is exactly what i would do, too.

bring on the final 5! as for the weather, it's certainly in keeping with the contest title

I for one trust the integrity of all the above mentioned if a tiebreaker situation arises

Thank you, you lovely women!

At this point I think any of the poems that are ahead could deservedly win. Sure I have my personal favorites like anyone but I am of the opinion that if the contest got you to produce a poem, you already won. But a lot of people tend not to agree with me on that.

It has been unusually hot and humid where I am, too. And my house is about 3,000 feet above sea level, where it is supposed to be cooler. My allergies are dancing like they're at a wedding. Yuk.

 

[Angeline]

Tomorrow

is the last day to vote poems into the finals round. If you have not yet voted, please take a few minutes to look through the poems and vote. We have two poems (poem 9 and poem 12) that are currently tied, so give these poems the attention they deserve and help choose the winner.

 

[butters]

is the last day to vote poems into the finals round. If you have not yet voted, please take a few minutes to look through the poems and vote. We have two poems (poem 9 and poem 12) that are currently tied, so give these poems the attention they deserve and help choose the winner.

and things are hotting right up! how exciting

 

[butters]

and - jeezus christ - if i hear the gushing 'baby cambridge' term much more i'm going to punch the telly!

 

[Angeline]

and things are hotting right up! how exciting

Yes they are! I think we just have one tie now and I have a few tiebreakers in the wings if we need them. But looks like we won't and I will be soooo happy to unstick all those threads. I am having a bit of sticky thread aversion syndrome.

and - jeezus christ - if i hear the gushing 'baby cambridge' term much more i'm going to punch the telly!

I have not had the tv on here yet today, but eagleyez is watching some sports show in the other room and the "baby prince" epithet keeps drifting by. And I thought we Yanks left to get away from royals lol. (But it's lovely and good for them. Life in a fishbowl, but they both seem amazingly grounded and good parent material.)

 

[Angeline]

Time for the finals round!

The semifinals polls have now all closed and we have five excellent finalists contending for the win. Congratulations to all who submitted poems and thanks to all who voted. We had a great range of submissions, with many different interpretations of the theme Erotic Summer. The finals poll will be up by tomorrow and will include links to the semifinals poll, so that after the winner is chosen you can easily check and see who wrote what. As with the semifinals, poems will be listed in the finals poll in the order in which they were originally submitted. All participants will be identified as soon as we have a winner. Good luck finalists!

 

[butters]

you deserve a big slice of cake now

 

[Angeline]

you deserve a big slice of cake now

So do all the poets who submitted poems. I just did the administrative work.

I think this is going to be a tough choice. In my personal opinion there were at least four other poems that are just as good as any of the finalists, but rules is rules. I know it sounds dorky to say this but I really do think if you wrote a poem you already won, but I am dorky that way.

I have ice cream and graham crackers. Homemade ice cream sandwich here I come!

ETA: I forgot to put the close date on the poll, but the voting thread will be closed at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on August 30, which will also close the poll.