[Nigel Mace]

Douglas, bless - I'm touched! I'll say thank you right away in case later reality disappoints.

AND I had actually already noted your Burma piece as one that didn't swallow the knocking copy line - hook and sinker - so you may be partly responsible for my effort

[Douglas G. Brown]

Nigel,

In a contest, sometimes taking the "road less travelled" gets one's entry noticed, and read a little bit more slowly. Not that it has worked for me, yet. But generals fare better in flanking maneuvers than frontal assaults.

I am hoping that the contest judge "gets" my Burma-Shave reference. This was a US commerical product that went out of business about 1970, BUT was famous for rhymed jingles posted on a series of four to six roadside signs from about 1930 thru the mid 1960s.

There is a book called "Verse by the Side of the Road" (a pun on a sentimental 1800's poem called "The House by the Side of the Road") that lists all of them; about 600, I recall. (A Google seach brings up Burma Shave jingles, by the way).

Here is an example of how they ran (this is my own composition, "to avoid copyright issues".)

From adolescense
To the grave
A feller needs
His
Burma-Shave

The metrical irregularity in L4-L5 is because "Burma-Shave" always was the only words on the last sign of the series.

Now, if I can only find where the BBC puts the accent on "Myanmar".

[Nigel Mace]

Intriguing stuff Douglas - I shall have a look. Oh... and the BBC usually say MYanmar. But why believe people who work hard to split infinitives!

[Jerome Betts]

Douglas, the rubric does in fact say 'in praise of'.

I would have thought there was also a secondary stress on the mar of MYanmar, but it's certainly not MyANmar here. If I'm right, maybe Myanmar is now its name?

I sort of knew about the Burma-Shave jingles through Ogden Nash, who refers to them in some of his work, (*) but hadn't realised they were on several boards. I should think The Oldie would get the reference.

(*) From memory . . .

Beneath this stone
John Brown is stowed.
He watched the ads
And not the road.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Nigel and Jerome,
Thanks for the advice on "Myanmar". I have done a fix to the make the meter work.

[John Whitworth]

The BBC used to have a pronunciation unit, but I believe the no longer do and now pronounce most things wrong.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Jerome Betts

I should think The Oldie would get the reference.

Jerome, this one is for The Spectator. I wouldn't want you to send your entry to the wrong magazine!

[FOsen]

XXXXXXXXXXWith apoladgies to Rabbie Burns.

Kiribati fears a body 
that is never dry;

Man’s been haughty, mean and shoddy, things have gone awry.

Warming’s fatal to our atoll,

 that’s the reason why
Kiribati’s got a knotty 
problem, by-and-by.
Since our nation lacks flotation, we’d be first to die
When horrific, un-pacific 
swells are rising high.
Relocation beats hydration, so we’re going to fly
To an island—Fiji’s dry land—when the time is nigh.
We are very like canaries in the mine’s dark eye
Or like Eve and Adam leaving, as our fates imply.
If our clearance, disappearance and our hue and cry
Cause you fear or bring a tear or even just a sigh,
Let’s be hoping while you’re moping, something’s left to try
When your home’s beneath the foam or other countries fry:
Here's to bases, more oases . . . Fijis in the sky.

Kiribati fears a body 

That is never dry;

Man’s been haughty, mean and shoddy,
Things have gone awry.

Warming’s fatal to our atoll,


That’s the reason whyyyy
Kiribati’s got a knotty 

Problem, by-and-by.
When horrific, un-pacific 

Swells are rising high,
Since our nation lacks flotation, 

We’ll be first to die.

So, Kiribati, raise our doughty 

Voices to the skyyyyy!

Kiribati’s growing spotty,

Drowning, as we fry.

Frank

Serves me right - I just looked up the pronunciation and it's "Kiribuss" So, it's an eye-rhyme - got it? Yeah, an eye-rhyme.

[RCL]

Georgian Spring

For Nani Bregvadze

I love the frescos in a Georgian church
high above Tbilisi, in the Caucasus.
Wrecked by centuries of foreign vandals,
it’s difficult to reach by car or bus,

but sought by dissidents who take the hike,
faithful pilgrims trekking here each spring
to pray that saints will intercede for them,
let polyphonic songs of freedom ring.

My friend hugs close a cackling scarlet hen.
I hold the tether of a bleating goat.
She sings of Georgia’s music, art, poetry,
and dance, of independence that’s remote.

A fellow traveler from America,
I volunteer to help prepare each beast
for sacrifice to nature and to God,
a spring renewal—our communion feast.

Soviet Georgia, 1977

[Nigel Mace]

This, post 28, concerns the threatened total destruction of an island community, 83% the size of Pasadena whose only way out - perhaps, and only perhaps - is for the equivalent of that entire city having to migrate a distance similar to moving Pasadena to Edmonton. This is being caused by the global warming effects which we - in richer nations than Kiribati - have been largely responsible for causing and I am trying to work out why this - even if presented with a tiny, opening moral fig leaf - is thought to be a fit subject for humour. I haven't found a decent answer yet.

In any case, the competition is supposed to be for a poem in praise of a country other than one's own. You may well be right, given the political affiliations of the journal involved, that this was intended to be read with sneer quotes around the word 'praise' - but even that would hardly be a reason for mocking these islanders' plea to be heard - or would it?