More poetry please....

I've just managed to wade my way, not through Tonbridge's floods, but metaphorically through the top 50 poems which were entered for the West Kent Book Fair competition, Tonbridge's answer to the TS. Elliot poetry prize. The main judge is a chap called John Dench, of Green Arrow Publishing Ltd, who has a better eye than me for a decent verse. I just know if I like it; whereas John can tell you what type of poem it is and whether or not it's structured and creative and makes good use of onamatapae (which I can't even spell). He should be able to because he's a creative writing tutor and poetry publisher. I must say that I really enjoyed reading most of them and was amazed at the standard of some of them. There are many which won't even make it into the "best of" anthology, not because they were no good, but just because you have to pick winners and commended poems which, in your own view are marginally better than the others. If I'm honest I would say that I could have read the same poems on a different day, in a different mood and could have made different choices; but you have to call it as you see it at the time. It was all judged anonymously anyway; that is to say that neither John, the other judges or I had a clue who they were written by when we were judging them. So, if you did enter and didn't win or get chosen as one which stood out don't be too disheartened. After all even the Beatles were turned down my EMI!! And the winner is.... you'll just have to wait until the next Poetry at the Ivy night on Thursday February 7th to find out; and obviously you'll be able to buy a copy of the winning entries anthology soon enough; so just be patient....