copyright 2005 Cynthia Joyce Clay
Oestara Publishing LLC
Smashwords Edition
LOCN: 2001012345
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Please note:
Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole and rests initially with the author of the contribution. Thus, copyright of poetry remains with the poets themselves.
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Dedicated to:
The voices that cried in the wind
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The Winning Poems with the Judges’ Commentary
Traditional Poetic Forms & Dream Received Verse
The Traditional Poetic Forms & Dream Received Verse
The Judges Share Their Thoughts on Poetry and Share Their Verse
To celebrate its inaugural year, Oestara Publishing LLC held The Oestara Anthology of Pagan Poetry Contest to create an anthology of Pagan poems that honor Pagan spirituality. Contributors included in the anthology have been paid one paperback and one ebook of The Oestara Anthology of Pagan Poetry. A first place $100 USD prize, second place $50 prize, and third place $25 prize winner were chosen for two categories: one of traditional forms such as sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus, and linked haiku, as well as verse received in dreams or trances; the other category was of free verse. Criteria for judging were skill in execution of the poetic form (35%), eloquence of Pagan expression (35%), and correctness of grammar, spelling, and mechanics (30%). Any errors of grammar, spelling, or mechanics that were not sufficient to make a poem be rejected were corrected for the anthology. The submission deadline was, naturally, Oestara (Northern Hemisphere, March 21st) 2005.
The traditional, poetic forms were defined this way:
The Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet has two stanzas, an octave (eight lines) with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba and sestet (six lines) with a rhyme scheme of cdedde or cdcdcd. The Shakespearean Sonnet has a set of three quatrains (four lines each) with a rhyme scheme of abab; cdcd; efef, and finished with a couplet (gg). The Cynthian Sonnet can be based on either the Italian or Shakespearean forms, but it must have 13 lines total. Reference to the four Elements must be made.
The Villanelle has five three line stanzas with a concluding stanza of four lines, each stanza ending with an alternation line of the first verse. In the last stanza both of these two lines appear together as a concluding couplet. Only the two rhymes are allowed throughout the stanzas.
The Rondeau should have 13 lines, using only two rhymes with a refrain which is a repetition of the first part of the first line. Using R to represent the refrain, the rhyme scheme would be Raabba, aabR, aabbaR
Linked Haiku must be a set of three or more haiku. Each haiku follows the usual 5/7/5 syllable format with the first line creating one image, the second line a second image, and the third line synthesizing the first two images in a third image.
Verse forms of Pagan cultures (indigenous people's, Hindi, preChristian European, etc.) were welcome as traditional forms; the poet was asked to define the form. We did not receive any poems of this type.
Poetic forms were expected to be in the traditional forms, however they could deviate somewhat from the traditional form if that deviation was to stress the Pagan theme. For instance, sonnets could be in Shakespearean, Italian, or Cynthian form. Cynthian Sonnets have 13 lines, make mention of the four Elements, but otherwise follow the Shakespearean form. Linked haiku are a set of haiku that are related in some important way so that the entire set forms one overall poem. The linked haiku may also run to thirteen lines instead of the usual multiples of three. All poetic forms may make use of poetic devices such as assonance and near rhymes.
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The Judges also served as editors. They are:
The Pagan Judge, Raymond T. Anderson, is a High Priest of Wicca and a Ceremonial Magician, also known in Pagan circles as a Mage for his indepth knowledge of Pagan philosophy, practices, magickal skill, and general erudition. He reads Latin and Greek poetry in the original tongues as a hobby. He is a trained musician, receiving his musical knowledge in a direct line of tutelage from Liszt. After judging the contest, Raymond asked, “May I comment on some of the poems which did not win but which I really liked?”
Delight Clay is a 79 year old woman who combines a high level of love, skill, and talent in analyzing poetry in general and sonnets in particular. Delight trained as an actor at the Goodman Theater, and so like most finely trained actors has an excellent ear for the music of language. She was in the corps de ballet at the Chicago Ballet, and as a former dancer has an excellent sense of rhythm and movement. Additionally Delight was an English teacher, and so has the formal study of poetry in her background. Then of course, reading poetry critically has been one of her passions for at least sixty years. After judging the poems Delight said, “The poems have been of such fine quality that it has been an honor to have taken part in judging them.”
Cynthia Joyce Clay was taught poetry analysis by Dr. Allen Grossman who won a MacArthur Award for his poetry. Cynthia was a theater major who kept taking every poetry class the English department would allow nonmajors to take. (This took stamina since the English department was on the opposite side of the campus from the Theater department, and the walk to the English department was uphill all the way, with part of the incline a very steep hill.) Cynthia, like Raymond, is a Wiccan High Priestess. As an author, she is very proud that those courageous souls who put life and limb at risk to protect the redwood trees loved her novel Zollocco. As an actor she is eternally amused that she could fool people into thinking she was a computer program on Shakespeare when questioned for three hours on the Bard. This was filmed as part of the PBS Scientific Frontiers as the First Loebner Prize for the Turing Test and later aired internationally. As a thinker she is proud that Ben Bova, Hugo winner and President Emeritus of NASA praises her book Vector Theory and the Plot Structures of Literature and Drama.
Cynthia points out that historically speaking whenever a culture adopts a new world view, the art and literature of the new world view is always vibrantly astounding and this why she wanted this book created. Many people are now adopting what is the new world view of Paganism, and these poems are indeed vibrant and often astoundingly beautiful.
The 1st, 2nd, and Third Place Winners
Free Verse
1st Place: Fertility Doll by William H. Roetzheim
Returning home I brought my wife some gifts,
Among them was a carved figure—an ugly
Woman with huge breasts and bigger belly.
Hawaiians said her name was Hi'iaka,
And thought this god could help them make babies,
And so I laughed and brought her home with me.
She stood beside our bed and watched, her eyes
Reflecting red in candlelight, her shadow
Dancing with obscene and naked joy
To hear Bolero by Ravel, to hear
The primitive music of need and want.
And in one month my wife told me that she
Was pregnant after trying for so long.
We loaned her out to Loni, who was pregnant
That same month. And then the breathless call
When Hi'iaka had the same results
For Betty Lou, after four years of trying,
Crying, clinics too. But now my laughing
Wasn't easy, now I found that I
Was queasy when I thought of Hi'iaka's
Naked dancing, watching with those eyes
That seemed to glow.
I know, I know she's just
A doll and not a god, not like my god,
The western god that toppled her and all
Her kind two hundred years ago, although
She dances on our wall, her shadow leaps
And falls, and quietly she plants her seeds
Of pagan thought, of strength in ancient gods.
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Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “The strength of this poem is its strongly pagan theme in a modern context, the theme accentuated by the tension of the narrator's nonPagan view. The narrator may not be Pagan, but the narrator exists in a Pagan world, a reality of goddesses and magic which exist whether or not anyone believes in them.“
Delight: “The beginning with its trochee, announces that heavy emotions are to be urgently presented. The importance that Roetzheim gives to tone and diction in the first line reverberates throughout the entire piece. The internal rhyme in the line ‘Wasn’t easy, now I found I found that I was queasy’ was surprising, and this unforeseen element lightened the weight of the heavy issue of the miracle. Further, the scarcity of punctuation enables the sounds of the poem to speed from one word to the next. This attention to technical detail carries the reader swiftly through the poem movingly.”
Cynthia: “Although this poem has a non-Pagan point of view, it is about a Goddess bestowing Her blessings even to those not expecting it, even to those perhaps a bit hostile to Her. In addition to the wonderful dramatic build this poem has, take a look at the line ends. Poetry is read vertically as well as horizontally, and the last word of each line of “Fertility Doll” encapsules the meaning of the poem. Consider just these three: ‘Hi'iaka's’ ‘eyes’ ‘glow.’”
2nd Place: Queen of Cups by Robert Merritt
She is drawn, herself, into her golden chalice.
All her thought is bent upon it,
Her prayer intense.
I love you, drowned souls,
Gathered from along the sands,
From amid polished stone,
The long, dark rolling seas.
I love your tenderness.
I love your heart of mercy.
Be ready.
You are needed.
She takes the cup to her lips to drink,
Her drink a kiss
As she holds us to herself one final time,
Then pours out the cup into cold waters
That have yet to be touched with light.
* * * *
Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “Language evocative of the feminine subject, such as Merritt’s in this poem, is important to modern paganism.”
Delight: “What we have here is a definite feel of a certain voice behind the poem using the poem as a personal message, a voice behind a voice as it were. The message is of a stream of emotion. The references to the cup suggest rituals because the actions are so emotionally potent. The quiet, tender, smooth tone and the soft and gentle sounds of the diction give the poem a rhythm even though it has no metrical feet. Additionally, I like that I am left with a feeling that there may be a surprise when the cup is poured into the ‘cold water.’ I had the feeling that all might be ignited and I loved this little unexpected zing.”
Cynthia: “Normally the tarot card of the Queen of Cups speaks of a fair woman, the romantic side of a woman, the nurturing side of a woman, often then a married woman. So, the card is often used to represent a woman of such qualities who asks for a reading. But of course the card can have its deeper mystical meaning, and this is the meaning Merritt goes after in his poem. He uses an alliteration of s sounds throughout the poem to give it the sound of waters moving, and contrasts this with the hard sounds of t’s, ks, and d’s that give a sense of fateful ominousness. The second verse uses the nasalsm, n, ngto slow and lengthen the sense of time so we feel we are in the time that is not a time and so held in the cup of the Lady.”
3rd Place: Banishing by Julia Swiggum
Archer, whose tradition is Eclectic Wicca
At midnight
And better it should be when the moon is waning
And the sun in his decline
Write it on a paper
And burn it.
Knot it into a black thread
And sever it in the flames.
Gather the ashes
And when the tides
Are in their ebb
Throw them to the sea,
Scatter them to the four winds.
They will come back to you
On the next wave
In the next breath.
Begin again.
Load it into a little boat
Tied up to your larger craft
When the tides go out once more
Bearing all things away
Set sail with it.
The boat scuds on behind you
Loosen the knot and watch the rope fall, the boat recede
Filled with false hope and false faith
Light on the water.
It will wait on the shore for your return.
The threefold law says
Try it one more time
For all acts of grief and sorrow are my rituals.
Take the pieces
Smashed, untied, dismembered, burnt
Scattered and reconstituted
In your cupped hands
Held precious
Like a newborn child.
At midnight
And better it should be at the dark moon
Walk out into your own backyard
Dig a hole and set your burden gently in
A poor thing but your own
And bury it firm in obliterating earth
Appease its spirit with blood and wine
Saying nothing.
Then walk away
And don't look back.
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Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “Using phrases from the Charge of the Goddess ties this poem firmly to the modern Pagan movement. To me, it does not exhibit as coherent an organization nor as much euphony and rhythm as Swiggum's other poems, particularly "Treehood" and "Fire Walk with Me." But this poem is unusual in its uniquely Pagan form: it is as if one is reading from the poet's book of shadows.
Delight: “The poem explodes on the first line and continues the sound of explosion throughout the piece. The initial explosion is created by a trochee combining with the hard d and t sounds. The poem cuts, dives, shatters with the driving force of a missile. This effect is created by the short lines of the verses, the glottal stops of words like dig and the hard k sounds. The consonants Swiggum uses are not mute sounds; they are sharp. Glottals are not easy for the voice to stop to rest after, and since Swiggum includes the plosives of d’s and t’s with so many glottal stops, the poem gets its harsh, driving tone. The combination of the harsh images and the driving force of sounds makes this a very effective poem.
Cynthia: “I like that this is truly a spell, one that would work. I like its reference to the Charge of the Goddess, turning the bright reference “And better it be when the moon is full” and “All acts of love and joy are my rituals” to the dark moon ritual of releasing grief. I like too, how it also weaves in the rule of three and reference to the Rede, showing how they not only help bring to ourselves the bright and joyful but also give us means to send away the hurtful and the dark.. Often it is the associations that a poem has that give it its larger dimensions and I think Swiggum has been eloquently skillful in this.”
Traditional Poetic Forms
and DreamReceived Poetry
1st Place: Last Ferry by Cris Staubach
(DreamReceived)
Visiting Gramma in the home,
She knew who I was
But was long past remembering my name.
Her presence faded in and out, here and where?
She looked at my shirt, cobalt blue,
And said "You're wearing my favorite color you know."
I hadn't known, but thought I should have,
And made sure to wear that shirt again every visit.
One night after Gramma died, I found myself
In a dark, narrow passageway
That led to a door, shut but not locked.
I stepped out into bright sunshine
On the deck of a ferry boat
Docked in a city of tall buildings and blue skies,
Blue water and a clear, clear view.
Gramma was there, and she looked so vibrant!
I could see my parents and my sisters too,
– in the shadows, and silent.
I felt a buzzing sound, too quiet to hear.
Chairs, we needed to sit ...
I found one for each of us, I thought;
Then remembered Grandpa and looked for one more.
I could only find a dirty one.
The dirt smeared and smeared; it wouldn't come off!
Don't worry;" Gramma said, "he won't need one.
He's already on the other side."
I looked across the blue, blue water
And felt my fears fade away.
I awoke, craving cobalt blue,
Though it's too strong a color for me to wear
Again just yet.
* * * *
Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “If this is dreamt or received
then its vision is clearly and effectively articulated,
It's important that the vision comes through to the light of day.”
Delight: “Such a sense orderliness! Tight, clipped thoughts skim the surface hinting at the deep emotions that inform the last image of crossing over. The skillfulness of the tone of embellishing the journey comforts me and gives me a promise of serenity, which secures the lyrical dream within my realm of understanding.”
Cynthia, “First the cobalt blue is just a shirt; then it becomes linked to the grandmother through fondness; then it becomes linked with Charon’s ferry, the river Styx as the waters and skies of the Otherworld are described as blue; and lastly, cobalt blue becomes associated with what is after death, for though the dirt of the grave—the chair of the dead that won’t come clean—is all that we can touch, what is after death is of a vibrancy that is nuclear in nature. It is this sort of structuring of visual images metaphorically until a single image becomes transcendent in meaning that blank verse uses instead of rhyme. Indeed, the rhyme would interfere with the visual nature of the metaphor building.”
2nd Place: Prana by Joy St.John Johnson
(sonnet)
Ishtar went through the seven gates of Hell.
In the end they hung her on a meat hook.
Days do come when I think it just as well
To hang with her, to honor that as luck.
Or more active, to wash her feet with tears,
But when this inferno does be quiet,
It is her faint breathing that fills my ears.
So pleasing is it, again I can eat.
Free to leave Gehenna, Hades, The Pit,
Regardless it’s next to Ishtar I sit.
To hold one thimble of her true love pain,
I would return to Perdition again
And again, learn what wonders are inside
My silly fragile shell. Let me abide.
* * * *
Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “This is Pagan wine in a non-Pagan bottle. The ancients, of course, had no sonnets, so it is unusual to see this material in a form usually used for love songs or meditations. In a sense, this poem is both, a love song to Ishtar and a meditation on suffering and death. It is pagan in that the ordeal is freely undertaken, not imposed, and the object of the suffering is known, not entrusted to some inscrutable Providence.”
Delight: “’Prana’ is interesting because St.John Johnson uses a rhyme form that I have never come across before: the terza rima. Further, the next to last line has six feet, breaking the simplicity of Spencerian sonnet. A poem about the mystery of the goddess Ishtar, ’Prana’ becomes as like a mystery itself, asking the reader to determine their own reaction to the final oddly structured couplet. There are so many images at odds with each that ‘Prana’ is like a diamond, each view of it giving a different facet of meaning. Quiet sounds of the semivowels l and m, the liquid semivowel r, and the feminine rhymes run through the poem making the poem sad and giving the image of a gentle goddess.
Cynthia: “Joy St.John Johnson follows the Spencerian sonnet form but makes use of consonantal rhyme within the rhyme scheme. For instance, hook has an offrhyme with luck—only the final consonants matching in sound (consonantal rhyme)—and quiet has an offrhyme with eat. In the first consonantal rhyme, St.John Johonson is also setting up a cacophony (discordant sound) that matches the horror of what is done to Ishtar. In the sextet, St.John Johnson makes use of a sightrhyme pain and again assuming a North American, not British accent. While this counts as following the rhyme scheme, it works to prevent the poem from sounding to rhymie, as it were, and keeps a level of dissonance. Most poems seek to be euphonicpleasing to the ear. Yet, St.John Johnson is deliberately keeping her poem dissonant which serves to keep the reader edgy and nervous. Thus she does not allow us to shy away from the frightening questions she implies.”
Note: All three judges chose a poem by St.John Johnson as a winner, but each judge chose a different one.
3rd Place: Harvest Prayer by Heather Harley
(sonnet)
The maidens gathered 'round the holy site,
To offer harvest prayers in ways of old.
Each stone was gathered by the moon's dim light,
An altar for great Taillte to behold.
An owl was heard beneath the starlit sky,
And gentle breezes through the trees did blow.
A fire was lit upon the altar high.
Three stalks of wheat were burned that fields may grow.
Throughout the night the maidens sang their song,
And Taillte high upon Her forest throne,
Did hear their prayers for harvest great and long,
And smelled the wheat that burned upon the stone.
Then 'round the fire did dance the maiden's feet,
As Taillte blessed the golden fields of wheat.
* * * *
Judges’ commentary:
Raymond: “Not only does this have good form, but it has a very specific reference to Taillte. All too often one encounters poetry with generalities and abstract expressions of pagan sentiment. While they may be sincerely Pagan, vague imagery does not make good poetry. I single out "Harvest Song" as a strong example of the concrete and specific. It is pagan thought and feeling made real.”
Delight: “The strict adherence to iambic pentameter of this Shakespearean sonnet, points up the importance of the image of light. Additionally the formal rhythm allows me to hear the owl, the prayers, the singing, the breezes, the snapping of the fire, and the tapping of the feet. The leisurely pace of the piece, created by the simplicity of the words, allows the reader to enjoy the sense of thanksgiving. The Shakespearian sonnet is a very formal poetic form and so supports well the sense of a ritual honoring the harvest.
Cynthia: “Unlike the other judges, I did not choose this poem as a winner. This poem is very straight forward and does not refer to other poems or other Pagan liturgy. But the other two judges have musically trained ears, and so I was willing to doubt my judgment. So I gave it the actor’s iron test: I read the poem aloud. It sounds good. I mean it really sounds good. Do read this one aloud, or better yet buy the audio book to hear it read. Many forms of poetry become ossified and contrived because poets get in the habit of using the forms to write obtuse poems that can only be understood if 5,000 other poems have been read. They loose freshness, vibrancy and die. This poem is fresh and unencumbered. It is very much alive. The direct and simple does have an important place in poetry, particularly in religious poetry where unabashed happy piety should be an expression shared.
You Are Woman by Bryan David Ciers
And least of all
You are love.
Today and tomorrow
Belong to you
As water belongs
To the sea.
Time is your essence
For you are timeless
Creator and creation
Become one with you.
Even your kiss holds life
Everything you see, you are.
Time is your essence
Today and tomorrow.
Everything you see
You are, beauty and
Beautiful, your attributes
Astound me, surround me.
Even your kiss
Holds life.
Maiden, Mother, Crone
You're changeable.
You are woman
Child and mother
Altar and after
You're emotions.
Even your kiss holds life.
Everything you see, you are.
Time is your essence
Today and tomorrow.
And most of all
I love you.
* * * *
Cone of Power by Lauren Curtis
At least 70 of us
All women
All Sophia
Which equals Wisdom.
A ring of interlaced fingers.
Clockwise movement
Courses through us,
Like the primordial soup.
The tribe enters
Our souls.
Drumming and clapping
Like an electric storm.
The thunder comes
From our voices,
Now one voice,
In three parts…
She is here!
Ancient screams
Pass through
Modern lips,
Plucking our chords
Like Orpheus.
Bring it down…
Bring it down…
It rests on the floor,
In the Earth.
Back to Her womb.
We called it out
And replaced it.
Grounded again,
We are now wiser.
* * * *