Upcoming February IBPC 2023:

[Michael (MV)]

Voice your recommendation(s) here, and

Please let us know ASAP if you are not going to be available to represent the Writer's Block -

then we will know not to consider your poems further for this month's IBPC.

I/We will be looking for consensus - in keeping with a communal workshop dynamic

Which 1-3 would we like to see represent the Writer's Block in the finals?

After the 3 are selected, then will each author post - in this thread - the poem as the poet would like it forwarded,

and ALL the needed info/statements

Ideally, the only poems that really need to appear here are the final 3, when announced, hopefully by the 1st of the month, if not sooner

^^ the intent is organizational - if poems appear here before the selection of the final 3, then there is a congestion -

Until the final 3 are announced, please maintain poems & workshopping to the Workshop Forum. Thanks.



************

any newcomers or returnees this month, Welcome!

and here is a home link to the IBPC rules: http://ibpc.webdelsol.com/rules


In this thread, from the poems posted in the workshop forum during the course of the month, recommend/nominate by title & author.

Nominated poets, please acknowledge the nomination here in this thread.
Please reply by accepting or declining the nomination - in this thread.

Please note & observe: This is not a workshopping thread.

In this thread, poems that are ultimately selected to represent the Block are then posted here
as the author would like for the poem to be forwarded
along with all IBPC required info.

When the 1-3 poems are decided upon, and permission granted by each author of the selected poems,

along with all the info needed by each author:


1/Your name

2/e-mail address

3/statement that the poem is your original

4/and unpublished work

5/and that you don't have a poem committed to represent another board in the current IBPC. One poet one poem one board
for each monthly,

6/and the poem as you would like it forwarded to the finals.

^^ All of the above is the usual needed info as part of the process.


I will then forward the 1-3 to the IBPC finals.


Thanks

Michael (MV)

[Michael (MV)]

It's February 1st, and hopefully we will have our 3 by Friday.

As a reminder, if you are not available to represent the Writer's Block this current monthly, then Please let us know. This will be helpful in expediting by narrowing the selection process.

Thank you, and Welcome to February 2023,

Michael (MV)

[FranktheFrank]

I am definitely available.

[Michael (MV)]

Please participate in the process,

and voice in this designated thread.

Am I to assume no one else but Frank and myself are available to represent the Writer's Block?

Perhaps it is awkward to be representing elsewhere this month, and also make recommends here.

I can relate to that,

Michael (MV)

[Michael (MV)]

My nom-nod for Bob's

Filling in the Bomb Shelter(the Cuban Missile Crisis Over)

Michael (MV)

[FranktheFrank]

Propose:

Will
#1 Post by BobBradshaw » 31 Jan 2023, 05:26

“…thou hadst small Latin and less Greek.”
—Ben Jonson about William Shakespeare


Will

Anne sailed into my summer
like a ship loaded
with spices, and me a merchant

hast been waiting years
for her to arrive.

Her blonde hair an ode
to sunlight, her breasts
as boldly pushed out

ahead of her
as a vessel’s figurehead,
I was awash in love's wake.

I tutored but 'twas Anne
who schooled me
in more than kisses.

Her sea wall breached,
the afternoons were flooded
with vows.

She flirted between pledges,
"Tutor, dost plan to teach me
Greek and Latin?”

Ah, Anne, I dub thy breasts
Greek and Latin. Much time
’twill be spent on lessons

with my favorite, Latin.
“And less," she jousted,
"on Greek?”

An exchange I shared
with Ben Jonson years later
who then invented

"the small Latin"--
which was the biggest lie
Ben ever told.

I wander. Anne
could not write;
I was in love and cared naught.

What I loved most about her
aside from her beauty
was her wit.

Oft it flashed
like the Avon when light bursts
through a muddy cloud,

the banks’ willows’ leaves
applauding in gusts,
as if at any moment

they might start shouting
in unison Bravo! Bravo!


Note: this is a revision of a poem posted here earlier.

[BobBradshaw]

I’m not available but I nom Ieuan’s “Frank Talks” and Billy’s “Every Moment is a Preparation”.

[FranktheFrank]

OK, thanks Bob.
Ready to go.

[Michael (MV)]

I 2nd Ieuan’s “Frank Talks”

And if Billy is available,
I 2nd Billy’s “Every Moment is a Preparation”


Michael (MV)

[Michael (MV)]

Thanks, Bob, for the update,

and for voicing a couple of noms,

which I have 2nded,

Michael (MV)

I’m not available but I nom Ieuan’s “Frank Talks” and Billy’s “Every Moment is a Preparation”.

[FranktheFrank]

Frank Talks

Original and unpublished poem
by Ieuan ap Hywel which is not representing
any other forums in the IBPC for February.
ieuanaphywel@aol.com

"'Frank' Talks as Ukraine Pushes Germany for Tanks."
War in Ukraine - BBC News Internet 21 January 2023

I don’t know why the BBC News heading
Uses my name in speech literals
In black and white, ‘Frank' Talks.
It preyed on my mind as I entered
The supermarket for the weekly shop.
Something I've had to do for six months
I can finding most of the shopping list now
Just need help finding: fresh soup, custard slices
And essence of vanilla (for homemade ice cream).

I ask one of the shelf-stackers,
‘Is whipping cream the same as single cream.’
I'm spared the pitying look,
They are used to me now, the lost 80-year-old
Among the tiers of produce.

President Zelensky begs for more tanks
German politicians agonise
They don’t want to provoke Russia
Half of German women were raped in WW2
I know they shudder at the thought
Is former President Trump trumpeting
his delight that he was right
at Germany freeloading within NATO.

I remember Finland in the Winter War
No country but Sweden sent them help
Finland sank, giving up land
And towns to the aggressor.

The girl at counter 9 smiles and is kind
Such a nice smile, the glory of youth.
At the café I order a shot of Americano
The woman frowns when I ask for cream
Maybe it’s meant to be without cream
I don’t know. A customer tucks
into a large breakfast. The women
behind him takes up two seats
There were no fat Britons in 1943.

I skid on the ice as I park
The trolley. My thoughts percolate
on omentum cancer and soldiers
frostbitten In frozen trenches waiting
for the coming Spring Offensive.

[Michael (MV)]

Well, here it is going on the 6th of the month,

and just 1 of 3.

I sent a PM to Billy earlier today.

Thank leaun for accepting.


Should my Burns' poem of senryu stanzas be one of the 3?


Hopefully by Monday we will know if the WB will have 2 or 3 going to this month's finals.


Michael (MV)

[Billy]

Thanks, I can represent the Block. This is unpublished, original work, and I’m not representing another board

Bhowellsinnard@gmail.com


Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

Those tears, yesterday, that were a fountain
I thought had no end. Tears the size of apples

dropped ripe from the tree. Apples, glistening
and succulent, pleasures to feed me for days.

A dead tree, rots and returns, a green leaf
sprouts from the detritus. I see the change

every day, every minute, like the scenery
of clouds on the stage of the sky. A lion,

then a whale. A panorama of the mind without
filters. And always the black cloud prophesying,

reminds me where joy lives, where I'm going,
thunder and rain, bolt of lightning out of nowhere.

[Michael (MV)]

Thanks, Billy,

and Good Luck in the finals

Michael (MV)

Thanks, I can represent the Block. This is unpublished, original work, and I’m not representing another board

Bhowellsinnard@gmail.com


Shouldn't Every Moment Be A Preparation

Those tears, yesterday, that were a fountain
I thought had no end. Tears the size of apples

dropped ripe from the tree. Apples, glistening
and succulent, pleasures to feed me for days.

A dead tree, rots and returns, a green leaf
sprouts from the detritus. I see the change

every day, every minute, like the scenery
of clouds on the stage of the sky. A lion,

then a whale. A panorama of the mind without
filters. And always the black cloud prophesying,

reminds me where joy lives, where I'm going,
thunder and rain, bolt of lightning out of nowhere.

[Michael (MV)]

Frank, Billy, and I will be representing the Writer's Block in the February IBPC 2023,

and the poems have been forwarded to the IBPC finals.

Good Luck to the Writer's Block

Michael (MV)