If the BAP poem challenge tests the hypothesis that poetic form is a special variety of verbal gamesmanship, Angela Ball’s "Specs for Hephestos" was a most welcome entry. Notice how Ball weaves in allusions to Gluck’s titles and manages to call attention to the umlaut over the "u" in the poet’s last name, a diacritical mark unlikely to survive electronic transmission. Great last line. — DL
SPECS FOR HEPHESTOS
Louise’s shield–it goes without saying–should be brazen. With wild clumps
Of iris, and all flowers native to meadowlands,
Unique species, especially. And,
If feasible, a handsome, straw-hatted
Stanley Kunitz, digging with a trowel, loosening a root ball. Also
Egrets, emphatic descending figures. Hephestos, hep artificer,
Get Patroclus, fallen from sleep’s roof, put his
Lost friend, Achilles, beside him on Mount Ararat: a vita nova. Of course,
Umlauts, famous for their soigné, sea-lion groans, should go in. Last,
Catch a hawk dangling a fresh kill, their joint shadow forming a
Kind of insignia. That’s the shield, in part. Louise is the sword.
— Angela Ball