This is too good to resist. I've put the first two entries in the current series of the cartoon strip Sheman's Lagoon ("Poetry Olympics") here and here. (If you want to see the rest of the series as it develops, you'll have to read your newspaper (or else subscribe online to DailyINK).

Anybody for having a Poetry Olympics around here? (See the second strip for ideas about events.) It would certainly be a more profitable waste of time (if you'll accept that oxymoron) than some of what is going on right now.

wr ()()

Sounds like fun, Rabbit. Since National Poetry Month is coming up in a few days, why don't you offer us a different event each wek of April -- perhaps all the Mondays, the 7th, 14th, 21st and 27th. That would be a fine way to start each week and get us primed for Tuesdays. What do you say?

Mary Ann

MaryAnn:

Sounds like fun, Rabbit. Since National Poetry Month is coming up in a few days, why don't you offer us a different event each wek of April -- perhaps all the Mondays, the 7th, 14th, 21st and 27th. That would be a fine way to start each week and get us primed for Tuesdays. What do you say?

Mary Ann

You got yourself a deal. Details forthcoming.

Primed for Tuesdays? Prepared to endure Tuesdays might be more like it (ha ha), unless Mr. Pinsky continues his admirable trend of posting not-half-bad poems in his column.

wr ()()

Dear White Rabbit,

Shall you be the maestro of the momentous event? If so, I'll play. I can write better poems than that turtle, dammit.

MaryAnn:

Sounds like fun, Rabbit. Since National Poetry Month is coming up in a few days, why don't you offer us a different event each wek of April -- perhaps all the Mondays, the 7th, 14th, 21st and 27th. That would be a fine way to start each week and get us primed for Tuesdays. What do you say?

Mary Ann

Here are the four events for the four Mondays in April (the first three as already proposed by Sherman's Lagoon):

1. The Iambic Pentathlon (iambic pentameter - also includes all other metrical forms of poetry such as sonnets, except limericks, HOTR and other forms of light verse)
2. The Free Verse Relay
3. The Haiku Hurdles
4. The Comedic Freestyle (any form goes here, including limericks, HOTR, parodies of specific poems, others forms of light verse, etc.)

wr ()()

waltz and capsize:

Dear White Rabbit,

Shall you be the maestro of the momentous event? If so, I'll play. I can write better poems than that turtle, dammit.

Hey, I've known rocks that can write better than Fillmore (bless his pointed little green head). About the only worse poet in the comics is Limpid Lizard, of the late great Tumbleweeds. Brute force stupidity, all the way.

But odious comparisons to fictional characters aside, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Write plenty and often, you and everyone else who is so inclined.

Yes, seeing that I came up with the idea, I'd better take the baton and conduct it. I may not be able to contribute much until the Haiku Hurdles or the Comedic Freestyle comes around, but we'll see.

wr ()()

Rabbit,
this sounds serious. Is this serious? Is there any chance you'll be limiting topics?

I might have to contend myself with watching from the stands until the comedic freestyle. (I was hoping there'd be a curling event, or synchronized swimming.)

waltz and capsize:

Rabbit, this sounds serious. Is this serious? Is there any chance you'll be limiting topics?

I might have to contend myself with watching from the stands until the comedic freestyle. (I was hoping there'd be a curling event, or synchronized swimming.)

Should I be limiting topics, do you think? If so, how?

For the moment, I am willing to go on the honor system and hope that people will exercise their own faculties regarding their subjects (without the use of steroids, for example). I've tried to put as few restraints on form as I can. Old or new original poems will work fine, so if you've written free verse, you can get into the second event in any case. I may have to pull out an old poem if I'm going to enter either of the first two events, due to sheer lack of time for new compositions.

Remember, I only have four Mondays to work with, and an insane schedule in the Real World as well. Curling and synchronized swimming are not on the Poetry Olympic Committee's list for this year.

wr ()()

Should I be limiting topics, do you think? If so, how?

I don't know on both counts, Rabbit. On PoemsFray, I'm not widely recognized as "the Good Idea Fairy," but I wonder if posts will be limited if there seems an overly seriously competitive tone to the events.

On the other hand, we've already had a bad poetry fest (where I was robbed, dammit. Robbed.)

In either case, will you post invitations to the events on BotF?

waltz and capsize:

Should I be limiting topics, do you think? If so, how?

I don't know on both counts, Rabbit. On PoemsFray, I'm not widely recognized as "the Good Idea Fairy," but I wonder if posts will be limited if there seems an overly seriously competitive tone to the events.

On the other hand, we've already had a bad poetry fest (where I was robbed, dammit. Robbed.)

In either case, will you post invitations to the events on BotF?

Actually, these are both Good Ideas. :)

Another Frayster raised the issue of competitiveness privately, and so I'll have to make clear that this is a Special Olympics (as it were): competition is not the point, but participation is. And I will set up the events and their rules so as to maximize that participation, even by those who can only put up OPP's (like MaryAnn).

I will recast the fourth event especially to make it a Light Verse Freestyle, so that comedy may appear in all four events if desired.

Posting an invitation on BOTF is in theory a good idea -- although considering the vultures that circle there, it may not be in practice. But I'll take that risk.

(Be careful what you wish for; you might get it -- another favorite Rabbit maxim, stolen lock, stock and barrel from folk wisdom. I would not want to be known as the Worst Poet on the Fray, even in the intentional writing of Bad Poetry. Best Parodist on the Fray -- now that I could accept. But there are those who may not be on the various Frays now who were in a completely different league as parodists. Kurt in particular was nothing short of awe-inspiring.)

wr ()()

Another Frayster raised the issue of competitiveness privately, and so I'll have to make clear that this is a Special Olympics (as it were): competition is not the point, but participation is.

O Rabbit! Remember how much fun we used to have when the contest originator handed out all sorts of joke prizes at the end? I hope you will consider doing that again.

MA

O Rabbit! Remember how much fun we used to have when the contest originator handed out all sorts of joke prizes at the end? I hope you will consider doing that again.

Fun? I'm still contending with this vat of mead. My husband's been drunk for months and hasn't been to work in weeks. I feel like I'm married to Ray Milland and I've been living a traumatically protracted Lost Weekend.

You can keep the prizes-- unless there's a puppy in there somewhere.

Why make it so hard for people, WR? Why should we have to go to comic strip that we may not read, daily, just to participate? Thanks for the heads-up & we'll see how it plays out. Could be fun. As always, C.

Oh, a "Special Olympics?" Now that, one might be tempted to join... Do you have a category for "disabled" poets? Disabled by what? Ah, now there is the question. Perhaps we could all revisit the original "R" poem & do a group rewrite? THAT was fun, imho. (I still have most of the entries in paper form, too.)

One person's opinion? Skip the invite on BOTF. They're more than a bit rabid over there, these days. Worse, they are not in very poetic moods. Just an observation.

• WR, I'd probably participate in #2 and #4, most likely. Who is going to be the judge? YOU? or the larger audience/group, as a whole?