It thrilled me no end to mingle with the poets in that nail-biting tournament and to bring the results to you all.

Millay finally beat Plath in the final. It was one of those games that was so close it should have been a tie. Fans were screaming and weeping when the two women hugged each other at the end.

Thomas

Louis Simpson Continues Wild Run, Joined In Final Four By Karl Shapiro

Louis Simpson’s poignant, mid-length lyric “The People Next Door” fought off a stubborn John Crowe Ransom-authored “Vanity of the Blue Girls” in another shocking upset as the Jamaican-born Simpson advanced to the North Finals.

Ransom, no. 2 seed in the North Division, giant in this tournament, with a sterling reputation as Classical/Romantic Modernist, Academic power and New Critical master, fell to the elegant Simpson, known for his insouciant urbanity and heartbreaking hooks.

Simpson then advanced to the Final Four by beating Archibald MaCleish’s haunting, fireworks of a sonnet, “End of the World.”

First seed Sylvia Plath, joining Simpson in the final four, thrashed Billy Collins to win the South, as “Forgetfulness” never had a chance against “Daddy.” As Collins put it, “my poem looked flat besides hers.”

March Madness 2009 saw the suicide of Plath’s son; mom is playing like a demon in this tournament.

Stephen Dunn’s “Letting the Puma Go” almost out-ran Plath in the South’s semi-final round, but “Daddy” finally took care of “Puma.”

T.S. Eliot, another no. 1 seed, lost in a squeaker to Karl Shapiro, in a shocking East Final.

“Prufrock” had proved too much for Etheridge Knight’s “The Idea of Ancestry,” a loose but strong evocation of family and faith, in the East semi-final. Eliot’s lyric formalism was too much for Knight’s strongly felt observation.

But Karl Shapiro’s “Interlude III,” a gem of a lyric, fresh off an upset against Auden’s “The More Loving One,” nipped “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to make the final four. Karl Shapiro shed tears of joy on beating Auden and Eliot back-to-back. “I can’t believe this!” Shapiro cried.

Edna St. Vincent Millay had no trouble knocking off Ogden Nash in the West semis.

Gallway Kinnell would not go down easily, however. “When One Has Lived A Long Time Alone” and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” went back and forth in perhaps the closest contest in the tourney. Millay’s artistry finally prevailed. An exhausted Galway Kinnell, said of Millay, “she doesn’t waste a word.”

This year’s 20th Century American Poetry Final Four features two favored women, Plath and Millay, and two upset-minded men, Louis Simpson and Karl Shapiro.

The money is on Plath and Millay, who “eat men like air.”

There was a brief scuffle outside the arena yesterday, when Hugh Kenner, carrying a placard protesting the fact that Pound was out of the tournament and Millay was still in, was hit by a pie.

Ashbery, Auden, Ginsberg, and O’Hara were seen in a nearby bar getting quite intoxicated with Anne Sexton and Mark Strand.

- from “The Big E.Z.”

LOUIS SIMPSON UPSETS FROST TO REACH SWEET 16.

“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” was the favorite to go all the way.

But after Frost walloped Paul Engle in the first round, Louis Simpson’s “The People Next Door,” a 14th seed, fresh off a major victory over a 3rd seeded Carl Sandburg work, up-ended one of the most beloved poems in the language by hitting 10 straight free throws in the clutch.

“I thought ‘Miles to go before I sleep’ would close the deal,” Frost said, “but give credit to Lou; his lines kept coming up big in the end.”

“My poem was longer than Frost’s,” Simpson opined, “and I thought it might have been a tad rambling, but I guess it’s emotional punch had just enough to win.”

Simpson’s poem is beautiful.

Beautiful enough to take down a no. 1 seed.

In another major upset in the South, 13th seeded Stephen Dunn’s “Letting the Puma Go” knocked off Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” at the buzzer.

The other no. 1 seeds, Plath’s “Daddy,” Eliot’s “Prufrock” and Millay’s “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” coasted into the Sweet 16.

Edna Millay did have trouble, though, with a hard-charging Robert Pinsky and his marvelous “At Pleasure Bay” in second round action. Pinsky led buy 5 going into the final two minutes, but Millay’s sonnet stayed strong and came back.

In other upsets, a smooth and relaxed Mark Strand, with “Reading In Place” got by an emotional Ezra Pound’s “Canto XLV.”

“I think it helped that I chose that canto for my recent anthology,” Strand (calmly) said. “I knew what to look for. But I’m still just so amazed right now.”

Strand fell to another giant, however, in the second round: T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

No one thought Strand had enough to beat Pound and Eliot back-to-back, and they were right.

So here’s who made it to the Sweet 16:

Louis Simpson, John Crowe Ransom, Louise Bogan, Archibald MaCleish, Sylvia Plath, Stephen Dunn, Billy Collins, Kenneth Koch, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Etheridge Knight, Edna Millay, John Berryman, Galway Kinnell, and Ogden Nash.

So I would say that poetry is neither dead nor unrewarded.

What a bunch of party-poopers!!

Show some life, people!

Muse in Heaven! And we wonder why poetry isn’t popular…