Greetings one and all: Attached you will find all of the entrants to the 2nd Biannual OSLIST Restricted Form Poetry Contest for you review. As usual, the poems have been numbered so that blind judging can proceed. You will note that a couple of the poems don't meet the proscribed form. Nothing like predetermining an outcome to ruin things, so I included them here. Whatever happens...
The process is simple. Vote for your favourite one by sending me an email message (offlist to reduce bandwidth) stating the number of your choice. You have until Friday May 5 at 11:59 PST (Canada) (that's 6 May 0800 UTC) to ruminate upon the offerings and provide your vote to me. You can only vote once. I was thinking of using MultiVote for this, but decided that the cost would have exceeded the Contest's budget by $200 or so. Thanks to all who submitted entries. The winner will receive a copy of the Tao of Pooh, the right to refer to oneself as the OSLIST Poet Laureate for the next six months and the responsibility of launching the 3rd Biannual OSLIST Restricted Form Poetry Contest in October. Get ready...here they come! #1 TRANSFERENCE I ring the bells, I talk.... I walk... around a circle pregnant with skepticism and fear Open Space, open mind open spirit and let the process of osmosis, deeply permeate your soul. Sparkling chandeliers reflect the silent emotions onto ceilings, while bare, unpainted walls anticipate the tape invasion. Now engaged, the circle animates the Space, assumes control, assaults the walls - and silently I pray. ------------------------------------------------ #2 will it work again? look at them gathered. I did not sleep a wink, as usual. except for a dream: grandma Shoshanna beckons me to walk beside her - narrow Carpathian shtetl path. begin the circle walk. slowly speak familiar words, and beneath them, hers: I love you - you - come, have some soup, tell us your story! rooms alive with conversation time for a nap. --------------------------------------------- #3 Metamorphosis You enter the circle with eyebrow cocked slightly - the self-assured look saying ... "Show me, show me..." You meet my gaze, curious, as I walk the circle and open our space for being... You smile at the Law and the Principles and jump first, artfully introducing your passionate topic. You say your truth. You listen to others. You initiate action teams. You leave saying "wow"... ------------------------------------------------ #4 My being stretches open I allow your witnessing, Offering an invitation and You come - your way I am out here With you - sweet acceptance! You are in me I am in you We dancing souls move, Undulating together and apart Flowing in, then out Separate yet still one I hold the space You orchestrate the dance Believing in the invisible That believes in us ---------------------------------------- #5 Yearning, churning, burning, learning Starts the grand adventure; Opening, widening, rounding, bounding Spirit in the circle. Working, lurking, harking, sparking, People moving and connecting; The butterflies and bumblebees Buzzing, humming and intersecting. Nearing ending, clearing heads, Ideas and new connections; Verging, converging, mounting, counting We forge new directions. ------------------------------------------------------- #6 CHOICE! ------------------------------------------------------- #7 Run On Open Space I may enter now Time as we are And want to be So join me please Take our chance here It's no more than You dare every day Or have we forgotten The choice before us Brings us home again It carries us down Through blood and up Toward dreams we have Already today's fresh breath Caught us moving on A journey most sweet ---------------------------------------- #8 ''How does OS work?' 'Beats me!' smiles facilitator, 'but what I can tell you is this: Whenever people gather to treat each other well, something quite magical happens as fire souls emerge.' 'That's a stirring image! What does it mean?' 'People whose dancing eyes express readiness to converse. Experiencing this has changed our people and organization forever, and we now connect with unbridled joy.' ------------------------------------------- #9 OPEN SPACE You have arrived here before, burning for air, surfacing in a circle of early spring lakewater with loons around you. Did even the ones who love you understand why you stepped off the dock into black water? The beckoning voice was so soft: consider the lilies. We carve that first time into a monument of birdsong and hand eachother deeper trust, easily, like sandwiches. -------------------------------------------------- #10 -- CHRIS CORRIGAN 108-1035 Pacific Street Vancouver BC V6E 4G7 Phone: 604.683.3080 Fax: 604.683.3036 (GO LEAFS GO!)