Poetry Olympics

There's an arresting headline! But no, it's not an announcement; it's one of the five-minute prompts from our last writing session. The others liked the nonsense I wrote in response so much that they demanded it go on our blog. So here it is.  — Rosemary

Whoopee! At last they have recognized me. My potential is realised. I could win, you know — I could. And the relay will be wonderful; how could we possibly fail at that? There’ll be Jan Busch and me, and Les Murray and John Kinsella. I can just imagine us, passing the stanza to the next person, who takes it and runs with it (metaphorically speaking of course). The official scorer will be taking it down with the recording device on his mobile phone. 

Who can the other teams field that could match us? I can’t think of any good foreign poets who aren’t dead already. Oh well, come to think of it, maybe one or two. The Americans might give us a run for our money.  But Aussies, you know, have words like no-one’s ever heard. We must get some points for originality. Bonzer and bottler and bewdy, they’d all count extra, don’t you reckon? Yeah, she’ll be apples on the day.

There’ll be the improv section and the free verse race, the formal high jump and the haiku sprint.

I hear the Board is still deciding whether to admit rap. So old-fashioned of them!  If they let in concrete poetry, which doesn’t even get to be spoken, why not rap? If they let in dada, which is just repetitive sounds, why not rap? I’m going to get up a petition on the internet. The Yanks’d join me, that's for sure; they invented it — or so they think. It was really the Mexicans, but never mind.

Well, gotta go and practice my sonnets and triolets. See you after the ballad race.


Note: No discussion of the nature of dada or the origin of rap will be entered into.