Poetry, Please! (My 400th post!)

Eek, according to my WordPress ‘stats’, this is my 400th post (I’m saying ‘eek’ because I’m just wondering how many words and hours that adds up to! But, to paraphrase L’Oreal: You’re Worth It!)

Anyway, it’s a milestone, so I thought I would dedicate the 400th post to that much-neglected art: POETRY.

Waitrose Poetry Competition

Waitrose supermarket has teamed up with esteemed poet, Roger McGough, to launch ‘A Year of Poetry’.

Roger has written 16 ‘light-hearted’ poems, which will be on display in Waitrose stores and now there’s a competition, too!

Poems must be between 2 and 8 lines and should be related to the world of food and where it comes from. They should be ‘thoughtful and friendly, and perhaps funny’. There is no age limit for entrants. Please include your name, address and age with entry.

There are 2 ways to enter:

Post: Waitrose Year of Poetry competition, Publications, Marketing, Waite House, Doncastle Road, Bracknell, RG12 8YA
Email: weekendcompetition@waitrose.co.uk

There will be 4 rounds, 1 a month, until September. The closing date for round 1 is 12 noon, Thursday 15 May, 2014 BUT you can only enter once – so make sure yours is a ‘goodie’ before you dash it off!

It doesn’t actually say what the prizes are (apart from the glory of being picked by Mr McGough and seeing your ditty on display in Waitrose!) but it sounds like fun – and it’s free to enter – so might be worth a go?!

What’s next, I wonder? Monologues for Morrisons? Sonnets for Sainsburys?

‘Judge The Poet’ – and my sheepishness

And still on the subject of poetry, I went to a charity afternoon tea event last week at this fabulous place, Foxhill Manor (you can hire it for Christmas – complete with butler – ‘from’ £5000 a night!)

Anyway, as part of the entertainment, they had a ‘spontaneous poet’, called ‘Judge’.

Wow! He was amazing. He asked for 3 random words from the audience (some of ours included ‘saxophone’, ‘pistachio’ and ‘Roger Bannister’) and then he ‘spontaneously‘ made up and recited a rhyming poem. On The Spot. Including all the words. And it made sense.

Have a look at him in action here, at other events, if you want to see what he does. In one of the videos, he even managed to rhyme something with ‘orange’ (which is supposed to be one of those words that doesn’t rhyme with anything – like ‘silver’ and ‘month’!)

I felt a bit sheepish, because I’d just been telling everyone on my table (well, they did ask!) what I did for a living. ie: writer, tutor and former regional Poet Laureate.

At the end of Judge’s performance, they all just looked at me.

“Er.. I can’t do that!” I said.

Sheepish. Definitely sheepish.