WD Poetic Form Challenge: Seguidilla Winner

Not sure if I'll open up another poetic form challenge during the month of November, but here are the results of the Writer’s Digest Poetic Form Challenge for the seguidilla along with a Top 10 list. (If I don't get a new one started in November, look for a new one in the beginning of December.)

Read all of them here.

Here is the winning seguidilla:

Longest Night, by Tracy Davidson

With each laboured breath she takes
I try not to weep,
determined to make my smile
the last thing she'll see.
Outside, an owl hoots
in hunger, as the darkness
swallows up the moon.

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Congratulations, Tracy! I appreciate the risk that the winning poem takes in confronting a subject that could've collapsed under the pressure of sentimentality and then twisting it through that image of the owl's hunger "as the darkness / swallows up the moon."

Here’s my Top 10 list:

1. Longest Night, by Tracy Davidson
2. Gazpacho on the Patio, by Christy A. Weber
3. Once & When, by Sharon Louise Howard
4. As Summer Fades, by Lisa L Stead
5. A Photo Speaks, by Nurit Israeli
6. The Dog, by Constance Barr Corbett
7. Metro de Madrid, by Joslyn Chase
8. Hidden Exposure, by Sari Grandstaff
9. Obrigada, by Cam Yee
10. Instructions, by Serene Vannoy

Congratulations to everyone in the Top 10! And to everyone who wrote a seguidilla!

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which means he maintains this blog, edits a couple Market Books (Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market), writes a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine, leads online education, speaks around the country on publishing and poetry, and a lot of other fun writing-related stuff.

He loves learning new (to him) poetic forms and trying out new poetic challenges. He is also the author of Solving the World’s Problems.

Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.