So the STIRRED POeT competition over at The Write Idea is over for another year. After a complete failure to chart in any of the six rounds last year, I actually managed to come 3rd in one this year and win another – which means that two of my poems are going to make it into the anthology. Yay!
(Actually, I did just about scrape into the very first STIRRED POeT anthology a couple of years back with my poem “This is How We Deal with Illegal Aliens in Alaska” – a satirical description of an encounter between Sarah Palin and a flying saucer. Here are a couple of stanzas which will give you a flavour of the thing:
He said, “I bring you peace and karma,
to the land of God-like Barack Obama!”
Well, I didn’t know what to make of that,
’cos sure as hell, God’s no Democrat,
and I thought I saw something under his robes
that looked like one of them anal probes,
so I picked up my rifle and blew off his head.
He writhed a bit, then he dropped down dead.
And so on.)
Anyway, this time around my two contributions are, respectively, “The Longueurs of Après-Midi” (a meditation on life, the universe and surrealist polo) and “A Lover’s Alphabet” (a humorous sonnet containing some Bad Words). I’ll give you details on how to purchase the anthology as and when.