The Acrostic Poetry Challenge: Solstice
Created | Updated Jun 27, 2010
The Acrostic Poem has been a long-standing challenge, mainly between B'Elana and PedanticBarSteward. However, we've decided to open up the idea to anyone who would like to take part, as a regular poetry challenge.
The word chosen each time is the Telegram Game's current word, so if you join in or subscribe to the telegram game you'll know as soon as it's announced. When you've completed your poem, submit it by posting to a new thread below, and we'll put the best of them together in the next issue.
Have fun!
Editor's note on this acrostic issue:
Things were pretty slow the first part of this week, as poetasters were obviously too busy swimming, barbecuing, and staring at heavenly bodies to come up with poems.
Finally, one lame verse showed up, inspired, no doubt, by nudging on the part of the editor.
Then things heated up – yes, darn it, that pun was intended, you should know us by now – and the champions, B'Elana and PedanticBarSteward, showed us what it was all about. It must be all that World Cup.
This issue: SOLSTICE
Dmitri Gheorgheni
Summer
Old times
Long-ago memories:
Spitting watermelon seeds
Thinking about thinking about picking up a fishing pole
Iced tea, ice chips, ice down your sister's back
Catfish moving lazily in the shallows,
Eternity must be a Tennessee summer.
B4
Sunlight
On green
Leaves and branches
Settles in odd blotches
Transforming the leaf-strewn forest floor
Into a mystical medieval landscape of
Chiaroscuro shadows scarce concealing treasures that are
Everyday artifacts now seen in a new light
PedanticBarSteward
Summer, having reached its longest day,
Only leaves me in dismay,
Looking forward to the days to come
Shorter days and far less sun,
The swallows do what is really best,
Instead of getting depressed,
Convene and travel to the southern climes,
Enjoying sun at all times.
The WINNAHS: Challenge Met and Answered
B'Elana
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
"Oh no!", was the answer, to my dismay.
""Let me be your star in the dark of night,
"Singing a song and shining so bright."
"Thus she spake and rose far up in the sky.
"I watched her ascend and waved her goodbye.
"Cassiopeia, the boastful queen
"Eternally mine, in the sky to be seen.
PedanticBarSteward
Shakespeare's sonnets leave me cold,
Oh – if I may as make so bold,
Lost on me are the darling buds of May,
Summer can eternally fade away,
The fair from fair that sometimes doth decline,
Is – frankly – enough to blow my tiny mind
Can'st ow'st thou grow'st as thou wand'rest in the shade?
Expect death to brag – that's the reason why we're made.
PedanticBarSteward, B4, B'Elana and Dmitri Gheorgheni