[Orwn Acra]

Are there any bake-offs and other events scheduled for this year? I'm terribly curious and can't keep it to myself.

[Jesse Anger]

I'd like to see a list poem bake-off.

[Roger Slater]

Could you give us ten reasons?

[Jesse Anger]

Yes sir ; )

[Jesse Anger]

Roger --


For the spell of it
the rush

the veneration
of the slush

the pleasure of playing

because the sonnet
has had its turn

just saying

for the twist in the sound
or just because

of love

for all

of the above.

[Tim Murphy]

Let Alex speak, but I'm sure events will include the sonnet, translation, light verse, flash fiction and Deck the Halls. Round up the usual suspects.

[Susan d.S.]

I've not yet done a bake-off, but would enjoy a list-poem category. I cannot enumerate my reasons.

[Michael Cantor]

You have to get beyond your Bakeoff jones,
you types with competition in your bones -
there's more to life than struggles over thrones,
or poetry that seems the work of clones
determined to outdo each other's drones.
It's all a showoff thing - if one condones
a Sphere of winner's yips and loser's moans
then life becomes a storm of well-aimed stones.

No preeening, posing, metric megaphones
for this pure soul; no steaming bourgignons
of tortured metaphors, no awful groans
of rhyme-forced lines left out there on their owns.
No flashy stuff. Just simple monotones.
I'll huddle with the other shy unknowns,
for only Gods can create perfect poems.

[Richard Meyer]

Hey Michael:

It looks like you've just introduced a new bake-off category: a curmudgeon's complaint in mono-rhyme. This could catch on!

Richard

[Roger Slater]

Name me one God that has created a perfect poem, Michael. God does trees. People do poems. I thought that was settled.