It’s actually 6.23 now, but if I go back and correct the title more time will leak away. It’s rare, but I actually wrote the title first today.

August is here and the year seems to be rushing by. I’ve often felt like this – it’s just what seems to happen. The longest day is behind us, the year hovers for a while, like a cartoon boat on the brink of a waterfall, and August arrives. I think of autumn, shorter days and mortality. It’s one of those months (April being the other) when the progress of the year seems to reach a point of no return. In April I realise that the new year is properly under way and four months later . . .

I’m struggling. After being selected for a Distinctive Scribble award in Eucalypt magazine, I have to select a poem for the next edition and write something intelligent about it. The selection of the poems was simple enough. I read them all twice then started going through them again slowly. My short list took shape and I ended up with a list of about a quarter of the poems in the issue. It would have been longer but as you go through yuo can discard a number as you know they aren’t going to make the cut. Then you can go back and cut some of the early choices.

I’m left with eleven. A day later I’m left with three. But have so far failed to say anything sensible. The trouble is that so many poets have multiple degrees. I don’t. The review of my poem includes the words “concluding spondee”. A spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables. It’s one of those poetic things I zoned out when we did it at school. I am incapable of writing anything like that  My only hope is that I can get through the experience without making myself look like a total idiot. The gist of my comments (which look like they should be about 500 words long), is that I picked the winner because I liked it more than the others. The problem is that I now have to explain, in 490 words, why I liked it.

So – select the best poem out of 80 good poems. Let 79 poets down gently. Avoid sounding like an idiot.

What could possibly go wrong?

Here’s my poem, by the way. You may recognise the story of the shed.

  we had several
half tins of assorted paint
and a subdued shed
now we have neither
—bright stripes

 

I can only find one of the shed photos, the rest are flowers from the gardens at roughly the time of the shed painting.