National Poetry Competition UK
 

Thirteen poems won prizes and not one NOT ONE either rhymes or scans. And, looking at next year's judges, it'll be the same next year Of course it pisses me off because I don't win but hell. The Duffy's best poems both rhyme and scan now don't they. HUMPH!

John, do you have a link?

I'm entered for the (kind of) young person's version of that, although i'm not sure they're affiliated - the Foyle Young Poet's Award (may have messed up the name, haha). Doesn't announce results until July, though.

John--

I can gripe with the best of 'em, and I feel your pain and all the rest, but the question is... what are you going to do about it? Does the UK need a bunch of metrical-only venues like the U.S., with prizes and conferences and so on? Certainly, I found the "mainstream" in Ireland to be a lot more friendly to rhyming stuff and metered stuff than the American equivalent, even though the vast majority of what gets published is, in fact, free verse.

I'm actually asking. I never detected nearly so widespread a prejudice against "formal" verse in your part of the world and was rather glad to to have that label affixed to me all the goddamn time. But perhaps the subterranean pressures are greater than I've seen in my admittedly limited interactions with the UK poetry scene(s).

Quincy

Good question, Quincy. The answer is I don't know. The good Carol Ann is quite a lot of a formalist, or she was last time I looked. Thereare a lot of us about who are my age or maybe ten years younger. And younger yet? Well, I don't know. I'll think about it. I think we formalists are all trying to win £25 a week in Speccie Competitions.

The link would be something like The Poetry Society, Janet.

The octopus on my shoulder has eight metric feet.

Looking at the judges and, more importantly, their own work I was struck by Neil Rollinson's "Giant Puffballs" http://www.neilrollinson.com/spillage.htm. Whatever next?

I think I shan't enter after all.

And in my opinion sphagnum moss does the job far better than a sycamore leaf.

Philip

That was the Swedish JanICE,

I am the antipodean JanET. And I too am grateful for the link.

It's heart breaking. I expect nothing any more except for the Exspectator.

I thought Rollinson's poem was crap. Too many explicit similes, which is just laziness.

Apologies to Janice. I knew it was you. I just mistyped. Aplogies to you too, Janet, for receiving, as it were, misdirected mail.

That's OK, John, people are always confusing me with Janet, who has been a member much longer than I have.

I take it as a sign that my metrical skills are improving. :D

http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/cont...petitions/npc/

Here is a link.

As for the judges, they are all hot at the moment. Padel is also judging the Mslexia poetry contest (closed) and Nagra is judging the Ledbury Poetry Competition (closes June 25).

Padel (though she doesn't know it) has taught me a lot about poetry, Nagra knocked me off my feet with the first poem I ever read by him (and I grabbed his book as my first choice in an Edinburgh bookshop--though none of the clerks had ever heard of him they said as I loquaciously sung his praises while paying), and as regards Rollinson, the reader who wishes to think a little more about Giant Puffballs might (or might not) enjoy Padel's close reading of it in "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem".

Just saying.