Abecedarian Challenge Winners
An inside look into the Vocal Curation Team's favorite poems from the Abecedarian Challenge
How much do we want to be aware of form, in a formal poem — and how much do we want the form to disappear? Philip Larkin was a poet with a gift for writing work that adheres quite tightly to pattern; and yet his skill causes the form almost to disappear, to melt into meaning. In our Abecedarian challenge, a formal structure is right out in front: the letters of the alphabet at the beginning of each line. Some of you landed neatly on each letter, accenting the form itself; other entries — while keeping to our rubric — worked to make the form flow into the poem. One’s no better than the other; it’s just fascinating for us to see the different ways in which you all approached this challenge.
Prairie Johnson’s ¿Cómo se siente? Is our winner — congratulations to Prairie on this moving, complex poem, which interrogates an absent father. “My memories are yours, but somehow you are not among them.” The alphabet has a sense of forward motion, and Prairie Johnson uses this momentum to drive her work forward, pulling the reader along.
Second prize goes to Dana Crandell for Zephyrs, a poem inspired by the night, by the names of the stars and constellations and the artists across the ages inspired by them. We learned a new word, too: xenial, “of, relating to, or constituting hospitality or relations between host and guest and especially among the ancient Greeks between persons of different cities.” Of course, we knew its opposite — sad to say that xenophobia is not an uncommon word — but we’d never come across its positive counterpart.
Well done to our runners-up, of course; we especially admired Geoffrey Philp’s Marcus Garvey’s Light of Freedom, which uses Garvey’s words to make what is almost a found poem. Tracy Kreuzberg’s Every Woman is an inspiring feminist anthem; and D. J. Reddall’s Dionysian Dancer revels in its Classical imagery, calling to “a language older than any human ear”. All of these poems show how a simple scheme — follow your ABCs — can summon creativity. From A to Z, these were great poems.
You can check out the full list of winners HERE and learn about our current challenges below:
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Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
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Original narrative & well developed characters
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Comments (19)
Congrats for everyone!
WTG all
applause for everyone
Hooray you talented people!!
Congratulations to you all!
Hello
Well done to everyone who placed and Mr Crandell!
Congrats to the well deserved winners!
Well done and congratulations!!!!
Wow, many many submissions, I bet the judging had some difficult choices to choose from! ^^
Congrats everyone!🧨🧨🧨🎈🖍📝
Congratulations everyone
Congrats everyone!
Thank you Vocal, and congratulations, everyone!
Congrats everyone!
With all due respect, the first prize is well deserved but the challenge stated that it's exclusive to vocal plus members and I don't believe Ms Johnson is, as I don't see the v+ icon in her profile as is usually displayed.
Congratulations to the winners.
Congratulations, everyone!! 💗
Congrats to the winners. Looking forward to settling down tonight and reading all of these! Thanks Vocal!