After several weeks in which the bloggers and the students in the  Daily Poem Project voted for the same poems (see the summary of the results for the whole project at the end of the week 9 results), the two groups produced different results again this week.

The class voted this morning, and  Ditchdigger, by Liane  Strauss, received the most votes (4 out of 13), with no other poem receiving more than two.

The bloggers, however, gave one poem a clear majority of the vote: Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara  Bar-Nadav, ran away with it with 7 votes (out of 12 cast), with only Strauss's "Ditchdigger" also receiving more than one (and it only got two).

One of the votes for "Ditchdigger" was from yours truly: it was an easy choice for me, as that was the only poem I really liked on a first reading. Too easy, perhaps—all the votes for Bar-Nadav's poem made me look at it quite closely, and what I discovered is that the form becomes much less intrusive if I read the poem out loud. I'm still not entirely convinced by the form, but at least it is no longer obstructing my response to the content.

Frequent DPP voter Don Brown is on vacation, so I have to do without his detailed comments this week, but several voters contributed comments to the call-for-votes post:

Nic Sebastian                          said...

I'm voting for the Maze, with the Fewer Disappointments next and the Poplars third. 68, 69 and 70 failed to pull me in for various reasons (many sonics-related) and although I found 64 interesting, I couldn't pull it together into any kind of an organic whole in the time allotted. I think it deserves a re-visit at some point. My thoughts on the Maze and the Disappointments at A Bundle of Biases.                                        Felix                          said...

I vote for Hadara Bar-Nadav's meditation on the Minotaur. I'm intrigued by animal speakers, or figures that are part animal, part human.--The poem is a bit of a formal experiment, which, I suppose, may have something to do with the maze, and the liminal or fragmented state the Minotaur is in.                                        Bruce Loebrich                          said...

Here's my ranked list (my favorite is at the top):

67. Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV), by Hadara Bar-Nadav
65. Poplars, by Donald Revell
66. In Another Year of Fewer Disappointments, by Eliza Griswold
64. from: The Book of the Dead Man, by Marvin Bell
68. Auroras, by Joanna Klink
70. Aftermath, by Forrest Hamer
69. Ditchdigger, by Liane Strauss

Thanks to everyone who voted! I hope to hear from you, earlier voters who were unable to vote this week, and new voters soon—I'll be posting the call for votes for week 11 on Sunday, June 10.