[Susan McLean]

The deadline on this one is Feb. 13 and the prizes are not large financially, but winning does entail being read on the radio program, so that automatically would give you a larger audience than most poets ever get. See rules below.

Susan

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/f...ay/rules.shtml

[Holly Martins]

I'm not entering the competition but I do have a Valentine poem:


FIRST VALENTINE

Perry Vale and Perry Mews,
which anybody might confuse,

I struggled long and hard to find
a message for my Valentine,

remembering to stamp the mail,
I printed Mews instead of Vale.

Now thinking with the nous of Zen,
denied me at the age of ten,

I see this oversight of mine
as first in an extended line

of crass mistakes which were insane
and showed that love was not my game:

a crucial skill at which to fail
began when I wrote Mews not Vale.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Last year the first prize was a bed! Economic downturn, I guess.

[John Whitworth]

Ah Holly, that's brilliant. This isn't QUITE a Valentine poem though it could be made so. But Alas, us Brits can't enter anyway. I've never actually met Lorna Liffen, who is indeed a poet.


Lovelorna

Lorna Liffen’s poem ‘Butch Boy’ is about a butcher’s boy

I’m lovelorn for Lorna Liffen
But she’s not in love with me
For she only has eyes for the butcher’s boy,
For the spiky hair of the butcher’s boy.
She’s taken a shine to the butcher’s boy
And that’s how it has to be.

Ah that spliff in the corner with Lorna
At a random rendez-vous!
But she only had eyes for the butcher’s boy,
For the earring of gold on the butcher’s boy,
She was head over heels for the butcher’s boy,
And I don’t know what to do.

For if in the sauna with Lorna
I should sigh Love’s louche lexeme,
She would still just have eyes for the butcher’s boy,
For the fluff on the cheeks of the butcher’s boy,
Still shiver with joy for the butcher’s boy
In that elemental steam.

You’re so simply spiffin’, sweet Lorna Liffen,
I dream of you day and night,
But you only have eyes for the butcher’s boy,
For the punk tattoos on the butcher’s boy,
For the silver chains on the butcher’s boy,
For the black leather boots on the butcher’s boy,
You’re so madly in love with the butcher’s boy
That it simply isn’t right,
Oh no
It simply isn’t right.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

I can't see that the competition excludes Brits, but I'm not keen on this clause:

All entries become the property of Prairie Home Productions and American Public Media and may be read on the air or published in print or electronic form.

Duncan

[John Whitworth]

I meant one could hardly read the damn thng on American radio. But I suppose it might be worked. Pity about the bed though. Ignore the clause.It's unreasonable and therefore unenforceable at law. Anyway, they're in the US. Far too far away to matter.The speccie used to have such aclause for poems thatwon their comps. You had to sign before you got thecheques. I used and ignore it. Seemed to work. Then some lawyer poet (WHAT?) read them the riot act and they dropped it.

[Susan McLean]

Sam, I believe the bed was a prize for their traditional April Poetry Month contest. This contest is different.

Susan

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

You're right though, John. I've just gone to the submission page and a state in America is one of the required fields. Still, I wrote a valentine.

Duncan

[Gail White]

Well, what the hell, I entered. I sent a poem about being happily married for a long time -- figuring they wouldn't get too many of those.
(Cynic!)