I’d like to thank all the contributors of poems for what has been an astoundingly fun project for me. Reading over 125 poems has been enlightening and inspiring. I regret that I ran out of time to post more selected highlights on the blog, but there are definitely poems in the running that have not been reposted. Real life has been insanely busy this month.
At this time I am collecting all the poems into a single document, which I will then distribute to a panel of 6 judges (myself, an English teacher, a medical school dean, an engineer, an artist, and a comparative literature guru). Each judge will give 3 points to their favorite, 2 points to a runner up, and 1 point to an honorable mention. The winning poem will have received the most points. In the event of a tie I will ask you the readers to break it.
Thank you for reading and contributing, and perhaps next year I will work out the kinks to allow everyone’s poem to be displayed.
The first annual Charles Prize for Poetry awaits!
Thank you for running the competition. Excellent reading.
Yes, thanks for running this contest, Dr. Charles. So much fun to participate and to see the variety of work submitted!
A wonderful competition, Dr. Charles. Good luck to the judges!
OBSERVING OBSERVERS
— James Ph. Kotsybar
Per perceiving predilections effect,
researchers search precautions to assure
that their constructed theories won’t be wrecked
by accredited critics who abjure
results from lax experimentation
which funnels too few affecting factors.
Scientist’s psyches lack isolation —
all audiences are also actors.
Objectivity varies with the minds
involved whose realities rarely budge;
what one expects to see is what one finds.
One must watch “blind” to impartially judge —
so data’s distinct from observations
which bind to belief’s anticipations.
Thanks for doing this. It’s been fun reading the poems.