There was a time when I believed I might still be competitive in poetry competitions by writing poetry. More specifically, I mean I hoped to revive the popularity of verse that both rhymed and scanned. While I don’t mind blank (non-rhyming) verse, which has an ancient tradition, I really can’t be doing with free verse, which neither rhymes nor scans. I tend to regard that as just badly punctuated prose, as you will see below.
Sadly, I came to realise that, with the exception of one competition that was judged by a proper poet, and which I won, the poetry establishment would no longer tolerate poetry. The moment of truth came when I entered a jolly poem in a competition run by Gardeners’ World, only to find the placed pieces were all free verse. Rhyming and scansion couldn’t get a look in.
So these days, apart from very occasional forays back into the field, I don’t compete and I seldom submit poems to publishers. This decision was arrived at (allegedly) as my New Year’s Resolution in 2013.
By the way, “Sliabh” in this poem, and elsewhere, is pronounced “sleeve”.
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Parse Iambicus of Sliabh Mannan By the Nine Gods he swore That his days of writing losing poems Should not continue more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And bade the whole world hark, And from his battered keyboard flew Such verse as once Macaulay knew To competition clerks. East and west and south and north The entries they flowed fast, From Bridport unto Aberdeen His poetry was cast. Shame on the base and tasteless judge Who does not place it first, Come lesser bards across the land And you shall do your worst. Parse Iambicus of Sliabh Mannan He waited in his home, Expecting that with every post The victory news would come. 'Til finally his patience, Long stretched too thin, was cracked; Upon the web he searched in vain For all the laurels that his name Must surely now attract. Lo, east and west and south and north Was the same judgement heard. In every competition was Free verse first, second, third. There was no metre nor yet rhyme Prevailed throughout the land But badly punctuated prose, Describing what? Well goodness knows. No-one can understand. Oh, withered are the laurel wreaths Upon Iambicus’ brow, They say these things are poems but He cannot figure how. The land that bred Macaulay, Swinburne, Coleridge and Keats Is overrun by so-called bards That write their poems in Tweets! The king sits in Dunfermline town, And quiet flows the Don. In all the land of Burns, there is No verse to look upon. No anapaest hexameters; No rhyming couplet sweet; But ugly, coarse, discordant noise Like shouted cries illiterate boys Might chorus in the street. Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands O where hae ye been? They hae massacred true poetry; It's nowhere to be seen. Now woe unto ye writers And wherefore did ye so? Ye hae struck the soul of poesy A near to mortal blow. Then up spake the old greybeard, “Whilst I yet wield a pen, This fashion I'll not tolerate, But scansion, once again I shall demand, until this land So long of verse bereft Has learned to rhyme as in past times! What? There's no biscuits left!”
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