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Dear Jack
I am writing to you in your capacity of chairman off the Black
Mountain Cultural Picnic, er Festival, specifically on the matter off the poetry
competition. First, I would like to feel some confidence that this will
not take place simultaneously with the judging of the children's waterbird
costume competition and the dutch auction for the limited number of bird
call cds with accompanying bird names.
Next, I am a little concerned at the matter of length viz
'suggested limit 8-12 lines'. I am thinking of delivering, if I assess at
the time that its slightly political message will not be out of place, 'Twilight
of the Bush Capital'. This, however, although considerably shorter
than its operatic counterpart now being performed in Adelaide, does run to
20 lines (albeit quite short ones). If I am faced with a cut-off at 12
lines I would much prefer to have the option of omitting two of the
middle verses rather than the last two. I wonder if it would be
unacceptable collusion if we were to come to some arrangement about
that?
Of course, the whole line limit rests on doubtful
logic. With a little editing the longest poem could be structured with
only two lines. I am anticipating here that a one-line poem would face the
challenge of some pedant that the line had been crossed that divides poetry from
prose.
Alternatively, failing an accommodation as envisaged, I could
deliver my 'How Swift the Parrot' (8 lines) or perhaps the pre-metric
'Finches', which was printed in Gang-gang some years ago when the editorship was
in the hands of followers of the neo-aesthetic movement. As I
retrieve the lines from my memory, they went:
Finches love
eating seeds;
they look for them
among the weeds.
To mention something
of more inches,
Hobbies love
eating finches.
Although lacking the passion of 'Twilight of the Bush
Capital', this, surely, would comfortably survive the most stringent application
of the foreshadowed length limit.
I trust you will forgive my writing to you on these on these
matters, but I would like to feel that my planning for the Festival is along the
right lines.
Sincerely
Geoffrey
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