As we do most years, Tim and I traveled this summer to attend the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest Celebration, part of the Great River Shakespeare Festival held on the Winona State University campus.
This year, more than 400 sonnets were submitted from poets from all over–many from the Mississippi River region, many from across the U.S., and each year more and more from abroad–this year submissions were received from nine countries outside the United States.
If you click on the link above, you’ll find a list of winning sonnets as well as poets’ names and home towns. I was quite surprised — and very pleased! — to learn that one of my own submitted sonnets, “Zebras in Sunlight,” is in the list. I was very pleased (and not at all surprised) that a fine sonnet by a poet-friend, Scott Lowery, was in the highest winners’ circle!
As an aside, I have realized that since the time I first learned of this sonnet showcase in 2013, I have truly begun to “think in sonnets.” I have written poems in this form for many years now and then, but I just did a loose count and realized that in the past six years I have written more than 100 new sonnets. I know for certain this would not have happened without this annual nudge from my friends in Winona. Thank you!
But I digress! The prelude to the event was music by the ensemble, Flutistry. This group of five flutists–Janet Heukeshoven, Heidi Bryant, Arlene Boll, Lisa Ramsey and Amanda Wenzel–wove the sonic spell that prepared us all for the music of the sonnets to come. Their program for the day ranged from a composition by William Byrd–a contemporary of William Shakespeare–to more modern works. All were rendered with verve and panache, as you can sense from the inset video clip, primitive though my videography skills are.
Valsette, J. Anderson
Ashokan Farewell, Jay Ungar
Mississippi Rag, W.H. Krell
Earl of Oxford's Marche, William Byrd
Fascinating Rhythm, George Gershwin
Summertime, George Gershwin
After the music, everyone headed in to the theater.
Many thanks to all the people who have made this event a summertime essential for so many of us: present and past Winona Poet Laureates Ken McCullough, Emilio DeGrazia, and James Armstrong; readers from the GRSF acting company, including Artistic Director Doug Scholz-Carlson; Heidi Bryant, webmaster; the musicians of Flutistry; the hundreds of poets who submit work each year; and especially Ted Haaland, who supports this annual celebration of new poetry as a living memorial to his beloved late wife, Maria W. Faust.
LESLIE
Thanks, Beth! Yes, to read poems in any category, just click on the red subheading.
CONGRATULATIONS! This is very exciting news, Leslie! Don’t think I know this poem. Did I miss a way to read it online or is there a way to read it somehow. It may be that I don’t recall it but with a name like that I doubt it’s that. Just thrilled for the good news and the fun post about a great weekend in Winona!
Thank you, Ted! Agreed…many more superb mornings of sonnet celebration in beautiful Winona! We’ll be marking our calendars.
Hi, Leslie A huge and heartfelt “Thanks”, over and above your winning participation,
for attending, with Tim, our final event. I look forward to many more! Ted
Thank you, Bonnie Jean! I often think of my first nervous visit to Winona, to read from Still Life with Poppies: Elegies, and how you held my hand on that journey.
Thank you, Jan, my friend who knows the satisfaction of getting something on the page just right!
Thank you for this post, Leslie, and congratulations on the recognition you received as one of the winning poets named in the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest for “Zebras in Sunlight” ~ another well-deserved recognition.
What wonderful poems and photos. Congratulations on the regional success of your poem.