I have been submitting poems every year for thirty odd years to the National Poetry Competition - except for one year in the eighties when I was a judge. There are about a dozen prizes every year, that makes 360 prizes, give or take a few. And I have won once, one hundred pounds the year Wendy Cope was a judge. But are we downhearted? Nope. I sent off a couple this year and eight pounds of my money into the void. And there is somebody who has won the top prize THREE times. I've forgotten who that is, but may his or her withers be well wrung. Actually I wionj prizes quite ooften, but not in this bloody competition. Why don't they ask Wendy again, that's what I want to know?
And why am I not Poet Laureate? Prejudice and moral idiocy, that's what it is.
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