Welcome to the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest Blog. In this space, you’ll be able to find updates on the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest, interesting information about jack pines, jackpine sonnets and the creator of the jackpine sonnet, Milton Acorn. For contest details, to find out how to write a Jackpine Sonnet and how to enter the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest, click here.
The Jackpine Sonnet contest is focused on reviving a Canadian form created by Milton Acorn, who is also known for his award conceived from his wake: the Acorn-Plantos Award. This award is still ongoing, and if you are a poet with a book published in the previous calender year then you can apply. The deadline for both the Acorn-Plantos Award and the Jackpine Sonnet Contest is two weeks away, so get your submissions in!
The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is underway and to make things interesting Geist is posting some of the submissions for you to read and comment on. Each poem will be posted anonymously (but with permission from the authors) and comments on the poem will not be considered in the judging. Remember, contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
A Large Stake
Dear Snappy; I have tried to play for a large stake, and if I succeed all will be well. If I don’t, I shall be happy to pop off in the midst of such an adventure.
—from Amelia Earhart’s will, excerpted in the New York Times, June 4 1928
Night, and the air smells of salt. The men asleep upstairs,
their bellies full of unending mutton. Oh, the mutton.
I fear I shall begin to sprout hooves. You could lose
the houses amongst the potatoes and inevitable cabbages,
Pole fences straining against the slanting wind and its
calamities. In the quiet kitchen, yesterday’s bread and
a crock of butter. Violent purple berries. Three hen’s eggs.
Who could turn stone into such plenty?
Twenty-nine years have conspired to bring me here
to these chill before-dawn gettings up.
My breath materializing in the fog as if I were
Shackleton marching slowly to his grave.
A sliver of June rises beyond the horizon.
I stand at the window, singing to the horseman.
The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is is underway and to make things interesting Geist is posting some of the submissions for you to read and comment on. Each poem will be posted anonymously (but with permission from the authors) and comments on the poem will not be considered in the judging. Remember, contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
The Cruelty of Curiosity
The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is is underway and to make things interesting Geist is posting some of the submissions for you to read and comment on. Each poem will be posted anonymously (but with permission from the authors) and comments on the poem will not be considered in the judging. Remember, contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
The Escape
He knew the moment he saw her that his life
Was broken, wrecked, disintegrated, and not
That he even wanted — now — a girl, a wife,
Inamorata, nymph, or anything, but what he got
In one calescent glance would shred and fuel
His fragile quietude into a cartography
Of stalled pursuits and spirals, a frantic duel
With his imagination and her eventual cruelty.
He could turn and go. He could get on his bike
And spin around the corner, pedal, disappear
Before she fully saw that she could strike
A shattering wound on the apparently austere
Composure of his face. Too late. She knew
And smiled a little, swinging just a step
Toward him; then, as he fully understood just who
She was, and what she’d do to him, he schlepped
His bike into oncoming traffic, and was gone.
In further attempts to understand the jackpine sonnet and to help those who have still yet to enter the contest, I have written some examples of my own. These were the poems read at the launch party of issue 76 and celebration of 20 years of Geist. The sonnets do not expand as much as some jackpine sonnets can grow. I started by writing a sonnet, then allowing the sound of the poem to expand lines to allow for musicality to flow through, or in other circumstances, to let the punch line hit a little stronger. These are just a couple of examples of how to approach the jackpine. There are endless ways to create your own jackpine sonnet, but I don’t recommend writing about Lady Gaga or Batman. Remember, deadline is July 1st, 2010, so get working.
Utility Pack
He spent months finding the right fabric. Dark,
shimmery satin cloak, a smart belt to match.
Latex caused too many bleeding nipples,
like marathons without Band-aids. He tried silk
but sweating made the fabric hang low like
loose skin. He tried black leggings since
they were all the rage, but when he ran
the leggings would rise to reveal hairy
knees. He switched to lycra spandex so
that when he ran, the fabric would move
with his skin and when he slinked into
the Batmobile, his spandex stretched and would
stick slick against the curve of his back
to let Robin linger at his utility pack.
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The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is at its halfway point and the entries are rolling in. To make things interesting Geist will post (with permission from the authors) a few submissions to the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest for your viewing. Each poem will be posted anonymously and comments on the poem will not be considered in contest judging.
So watch this space to find your muse and then write your own Jackpine Sonnet. The contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
smithereens
jazz in my left ear, I whisper,
I walk, I turn down an empty block to
(verb)(subject)(object) of my affection.
Patterns from a pattern-maker,
one spool for a whipsawed sweater-maker,
with jumper cables, to jump-start the alternator.
You’ll never guess what’s in store,
you could never imagine what putting God first
will do for your eye-complexion, for your kidney floor,
for your vexation, for your book report.
That’s just the way it goes when your prayers are reposed,
when your kindness comes exposed,
when you’ve lost your spoon in the soup, and no one’s home.
I wish for miles and miles of string,
to make a cup-based telephone,
and spin about in a padded wall alleyway.
Indeed, I learned what Alas means
(I used to think it: at last)
because of you: my furnace,
my heart-strings pulled taut, pulled fast, pulled tight.
The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is at its halfway point and the entries are rolling in. To make things interesting Geist will post (with permission from the authors) a few submissions to the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest for your viewing. Each poem will be posted anonymously and comments on the poem will not be considered in contest judging.
So watch this space to find your muse and then write your own Jackpine Sonnet. The contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
Shadows Wait for Dawn to Call
As evening folds a raven cloak about
The fragile twilight melting at the fringe,
A chafing wind recalls that frightened cringe
From darkness and its cold, unfriendly doubt.
The morning is soon lost as dusk draws near,
For fear it fails to bring with it the light.
The faith that could relieve the gloom of night
Seems lost amid the shadows, cast in fear.
But just as all the crimson leaves must fall,
So, too, the sun will always travel west
And rise again to warm the dew-soaked earth.
For shadows only wait for dawn to call,
And then the earth will waken from its rest;
It will not die without the joy of birth.
The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is at its halfway point and the entries are rolling in. To make things interesting Geist will post (with permission from the authors) a few submissions to the Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest for your viewing. Each poem will be posted anonymously and comments on the poem will not be considered in contest judging.
So watch this space to find your muse and then write your own Jackpine Sonnet. The contest closes July 1st, so get writing!
Sonnet for the Distance Between Us
distance the fence still swings open, sorrel.
The Jackpine Sonnet contest is focused on reviving a Canadian form created by Milton Acorn, who is also known for his award conceived from his wake: the Acorn-Plantos Award. This award is still ongoing, and if you are a poet with a book published in the previous calender year then you can apply.
So, maybe the sonnet is not your favourite poetic form. Maybe you love free verse. Maybe you love free verse so hard that you cannot fathom any constrain on your words. Sure, sonnets are scary. You have to put time and effort into them. You want to say something but you don’t think it will fit into the line. And what happens when you have a line and it isn’t finished. A line break? Weird.
There has been some confusion over the jackpine sonnet. The explanation has some people saying that’s not a sonnet, this is a sonnet. To make it more confusing I respond back with, “that’s not a sonnet, this is a sonnet” as I hold a spoon in my hand. Click here to understand this pop-culture reference.
Pop-culture references aside, let’s say that you wanted to write a jackpine sonnet and didn’t know where to start. Well thankfully poet extraordinaire Sina Queyras, otherwise known as Lemon Hound, has helped us discuss and understand the form of sonnet. Her recent blog post at Harriet discusses the multiple variations of sonnet. From erasure sonnets, to compression sonnets, to — yes — jackpine sonnets. The blog post is a short summary of sonnets, but it gives a quick glance at all of the forms that come from it. (It also proves that the comment section of any blog is a death match of egos.)
Now there is something looming within the jackpine sonnets that has poets running in the opposite direction. Is it a young ghost hoping to steal your soul in the middle of the night? Nope, just somewhat opposing ideas. The jackpine sonnet asks the poet for a sonnet, but says, don’t constrain yourself to the form.
As Ms. Lemon Hound, the bad-ass poet of the internet, can tell you:
“So yes, the Jackpine Sonnet. “The fiddle’s incomplete without the dance,” Acorn writes, “Let’s hook fingers to complete.” Without some kind of constraint, verse Acorn suggests lacks luster, and in general, I would agree. There is little sign of a struggle, perhaps. Form or constraint puts pressure on the idea behind the poem, on the original gesture. The sonnet form, Acorn argues, is “realisant.” It’s an organic, not fixed form. “It grows to any shape that suits the light, suits the winds, suits itself.” The Jackpine is a tree that grows in all sorts of conditions. It is resilient and as Acorn appreciates, each tree grows and looks very differently.” – Sina Queyras, Harriet Blog
So here is one final image for your to consider in writing a jackpine sonnet. Imagine a pot, not the Canadian pot but a flower pot. Each plant is put into the same pot, over and over again. Each flower that grows is beautiful in its own way. Now imagine one flowers’ roots grow through the pot and break it. The image is different, beautiful in its own way. This, is the the jackpine sonnet. Where not only are the poems different, the form is as well. Slight alterations to the point that each poet is creating their own form each time they write a jackpine sonnet. Scary. A world where apposing ideas collide to make art.
Now, my friend, become the sonneteer and imagineer it. And Lemon Hound, if you are reading this, respond to my fan mail.
