Poets melt our hearts, if not our ice dams

Who would have guessed there was such a deep, rich vein of ice dam poetry trapped beneath the surface of frozen Minnesota?

Last week I issued a challenge for readers to submit poems about ice dams, which seem to have overtaken just about every roofline in the state. You responded with gusto, talent and humor. Well over 100 people sent poems, including some multiple submissions. Many came during the day from what appeared to be work computers, so I can only conclude that a lot of people ignored their jobs long enough during the frigid early part of last week to scribble a few lines of winter verse.

Well done.

There were some trends worth noting. First, the dominant form for ice dam poetry seems to be haiku.

Spare and elegant, they beautifully capture the horror that is the ice dam. Surprisingly, there were only a couple of limericks. Thank you.

There were also valiant attempts to rhyme difficult words ("periphery" and "slippery"). Dozens of you tried to play off the words "dam" and "Damn," but perhaps no one more cleanly than Nancy Kaminski:

Ice dam.

It would be very Minnesotan of me to say everyone's a winner. But sorry, Nancy, there is only one winner in my world and it's not you. Congratulations on being a top-five poet, though.

Bonnie Woodard got points from judge Jeff Johnson for her use of history, quoting David Farragut, hero of the Battle of Mobile Bay, in a very tidy effort:

Had he lived in Minnesota, Farragut might have said, torpedo the dams, full speed ahead!!

Johnson cited Roy Close's poem as by far the best take on a famous poem with his "Gazing at an Ice Dam on a Winter Morning." It isn't Frost, Roy commented, but it's Close (OK, we get it). Close is a former Star Tribune staffer, so he's disqualified, and he also cleverly tried to get a cuss word (rhyming it with en masse) into the newspaper, so he's disqualified again. Here's the top of his poem:

Whose roof this is I think I know:

I cannot see it now, of course;

It's covered up by ice and snow.

I chip away with brutal force

And cuss until I'm nearly hoarse;

I want this dam to go away,

Inevitably, a few people turned to rap music for inspiration. Johnson gave the nod to Ann Hamre of Roseville, who channeled, fittingly, Vanilla Ice:

Ice Dam Baby, (Minnesota) Ice Dam Baby

All right stop, get out the insulation

Ice dam's back bringing more devastation

Fling pantyhose in the air - unsightly

Will it ever stop? Yo! I don't know

Livin' in the land of the ice and snow

Got me a blowtorch, gonna keep rakin'

Bring it on winter, 'cause I ain't fakin'

Back on the roof, start heating the periphery

Fall off the roof face-first in a snowbank

Neighbor wanna help, but I say "no thanks"

Gotta be tough in the arctic nation

Weekend forecast only feeds my consternation

Ducts in my exhaust fans best be tight

Ice Dam Baby, (Minnesota) Ice Dam Baby

Good work, all of you. Now for our winner, Mark Johanson of St. Paul.

Johnson praised Johanson's link to Valentine's Day and his killer closing line. Johanson will receive a modest gift card to D'Amico Kitchen's Eden Ice Chamber bar at the Chambers Hotel. But in the event the place melts before he gets the card, it's good at any D'Amico restaurant.

(In honor of the contest, a bartender at the Ice Chamber created a special cocktail, "The White Out Ice Dam Martini," made with vodka, peppermint liqueur, white creme de cacao, and cream sprinkled with cocoa. Anyone who turns in a receipt for ice dam removal gets one drink free, says spokesman John Larson.)

Now, here is Johanson's winning poem:

My love is like an ice dam

Steadfast, hard to kill

Never moving but always growing

Spreading beneath your shingles

Searching for a crack or chink

It will rain down upon your heart

It will melt your sheetrock

jtevlin@startribune.com • 612-673-1702