Here are the Winners of the Sweet Sixteen Contests:
I love to sleep, still more to sleep In stone while pain and shame exist: not see, or feel, or be kissed; so do not wake me, or weep. —Michelangelo
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, The fragile secret of a flower, Music, the making of a poem That gave me heaven for an hour. —Teasdale
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. —Coleridge
Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sear—Our memories were treacherous and sere—For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year. —Poe
But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth’s end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. —Milton
‘Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been; They smile so when one’s right, and when one’s wrong They smile still more, and then there intervene Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss—I learned the little that I know by this. —Byron
The basement casements, dusty with disuse, convey with their impregnably abstruse recalcitrance an inner life, to all who are among the living of no use. The wide walkways of the stars divide chapters of our lives like music in reverse. —Mazer
There was such speed in her little body, And such lightness in her footfall, It is no wonder her brown study Astonishes us all. —Ransom
Wow. The upsets continue.
Michelangelo continues his amazing run, eliminating the best lyric poet of the 20th century, Tom Eliot (and his lovely, haunting ‘sea-girls wreathed with seaweed’ passage) with a remarkable, concise meditation on stony sleep!
The placid and beautiful verse of Teasdale runs roughshod over Wordsworth!
Coleridge versus Tennyson was a clash of titans, but the author of “Kubla Khan” prevailed!
Poe had his hands full with Keats, but that rhythm! Poe’s got rhythm!
Milton easily dispatched Ashbery.
Byron knocked off Shelley, and deserves to be here!
Mazer may be the best poet of his generation; Mazer beat Chin in a Scarriet rematch between these two American poets.
Ransom, an underestimated lyric master (“Astonishes” astonishes rhythmically) advances over an icon, Alexander Pope!
The March Madness 2015 Poetry Tourney is now down to 8 poets!
Michelangelo versus Teasdale is next. One of these Cinderella teams will have to go! So sad.
