Thanks for posting news of this competition, John. The Spectator had a recent comp calling for poems on the referendum in the style of William McGonagall, but this is a horse of a whole different color, or a tartan of a whole different design.
As I read the competition announcement, the organizers mention Burns but don't actually ask that entries be written in imitation of his style. Do you have reason to believe that Burns pastiche is what they're looking for?
Two things in the announcement give me pause:
Any metrical form is welcome – the ballad stanza, rhyming couplets, iambic pentameters, free verse are all welcome options.
Surely they don't think that free verse is a metrical form?
More recently the [group behind this comp] sponsored the Reboot of Tam o’Shanter, attracting nearly 80 poems from all over the world, almost certainly a record for a poetry competition.
Can they really be so out of touch with the universe of poetry competitions that they believe 80 entries comes anywhere close to being a record?
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