| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
INSANITY
Patrice Gates
(Gandy Creek)
Throughout these latest years she's sat and spun
the threads of each calm day, and woven tight
and fast the cloak that covered everyone
she loved, and locked all doors against the blight.
To no avail, apparently, despite
her care the threads unravel one by one,
the locks unpick, and open onto night--
it's Rumplestiltskin, come to claim her son.
And now the common girl who once was bold
enough to charm a prince and trick a sprite,
who never learned to change the straw to gold,
stands powerless against the monster's right.
She reaches with her hands toward a cold
abyss she cannot name, or touch, or hold.
Judge Harvey Stanbrough's comment: “This poem is an excellent example of a Shakespearean sonnet. The poet followed the rhyme scheme exactly without resorting either to forced rhymes or those irritating slant rhymes, turned the poem on line nine, and provided in the final couplet a powerful, emotional ending for a well-wrought, emotion-laden poem.”
About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
Honorable Mentions, May 2001
