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Ed’s Top Ten Favorite March Madness Poetry 2012 Poems: #1

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We’re now just ONE day away from the start of March Madness Poetry 2013! 32 of 64 authletes will receive their first round words Monday evening, and the 36-hour writing window will begin! The other 32 authletes will receive their first round words on Tuesday evening, and we’ll find ourselves immediately at “peak madness” on Thursday when ALL 64 POEMS are up for vote at the same time!

Before it all begins again, I will conclude my one-a-day postings of my Top Ten favorite poems from #MMPoetry 2012 with my personal favorite poem of the entire event, one written by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater prompted by her 4-seed word “control” in the second round:

4-control
Instinct
by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

A star nosed mole cannot control
the fact she needs to dig a hole.
She feels it in her furry soul.
Tunnel, Small One. That’s your role.

And so she waits for worms to fall
through earthen ceiling, dirt-pressed wall.
She paralyzes one and all.
Dig. Kill. Dig. She hears the call.


This poem captured 83% of the vote in its matchup (despite going up against a lovely poem by Jeanne Poland using the 12-seed word “amorphous”) and helped Amy reach the Sweet Sixteen. This poem is stunning, and exhibits the control that Amy herself has as a poet. There are so many directions one could take with a word like “control”, but Amy’s unique perspective takes her underground and inside the mind of a tiny but fascinating creature, which she at once exposes and celebrates for everything that it is. And she does so in a way that makes her prompt word the centerpiece of her poem, both in terms of the imagery and the emotion that it creates. Reading this, much like the star nosed mole itself, I cannot control my reaction, which is one of paralyzing conflict where I feel drawn to take a step forward and backward at the same time, in admiration and fear of this creature. And what is most amazing is that this conflict persists no matter how many times I re-read this poem. I feel it all again … every time.

Click here to see this poem as it originally appeared in #MMPoetry 2012.

Click here to learn a bit more about the star nosed mole.

CLICK HERE TO BUY AMY’S FIRST POETRY COLLECTION FOREST HAS A SONG, released March 26, 2013.

#MMPoetry 2013 begins tomorrow! Join the madness.

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