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gerbieI tend to write a lot, but hardly ever anything that is considered poetry. Just once in a while, something flashes through my head and I can't make a story out of it, I decide to write a poem. Nothing serious, just for fun, never does it take me a lot of time. I can't take myself as serious as some poets who manage to put all the trouble in the world in an endless series of metaphors. Nothing against that, by the way, it's just not me.
Last year, I was surfing the web and bumped into a poetry competition. Coincidentally I had written some stuff the day before and on the spot I translated it into English and entered. To my big surprise a couple of months later I got a phone call from my mom (I was in Oz at the time), that I had won something, they were going to publish my poem in a collection and as a semi-finalist I was in the running for a ten thousand dollar prize.
I got the mail in Australia, but decided that it wasn't worth continuing. I am not paying fifty bucks for a coffee table edition when my crap poem is good enough to be in there. If I wanted an artist's profile in the book, it would cost me 25 extra. So, even though, and I quote, I had 'unique talent and artistic vision' I would still be nearly a hundred dollars lighter for a book that would appear one year later. No thanx.
My suspicion was confirmed when only a week later my second poem was selected as well! I never bothered to do something anymore, but I saw these papers lying somewhere the other day. Still think it's a hoax, a reader's digest of poetry. Anybody heard of poetry.com or the book "Nature's echoes"? If someone happens to bump into it, see if you can find my poems, I'd be surprised if they are really in it.
Just to confirm that I am not a poet, I'll let you judge the two semi-finalist poems I wrote. One more quote: "Gerben, you should be genuinely proud of your accomplishment. Of the thousands of poems we read each year, only a fraction can be published."
Relief
standing
in the middle of the night
somewhere
on the edge of a street
pissing
feeling the wind
past your corn
gives you the chills
for just one second
the moment you see the damp
and feel the relief
no more tension on your bladder
this is happiness
(I'm not 100% sure, but I feel the original, which I haven't got anymore, had the word dick head in it, they must have edited as well)
ant
how is it
that a single ant
walks like
he's drunk
why doesn't it walk straight
is it drunk?
or is it
ant logic
too complicated for me
Last year, I was surfing the web and bumped into a poetry competition. Coincidentally I had written some stuff the day before and on the spot I translated it into English and entered. To my big surprise a couple of months later I got a phone call from my mom (I was in Oz at the time), that I had won something, they were going to publish my poem in a collection and as a semi-finalist I was in the running for a ten thousand dollar prize.
I got the mail in Australia, but decided that it wasn't worth continuing. I am not paying fifty bucks for a coffee table edition when my crap poem is good enough to be in there. If I wanted an artist's profile in the book, it would cost me 25 extra. So, even though, and I quote, I had 'unique talent and artistic vision' I would still be nearly a hundred dollars lighter for a book that would appear one year later. No thanx.
My suspicion was confirmed when only a week later my second poem was selected as well! I never bothered to do something anymore, but I saw these papers lying somewhere the other day. Still think it's a hoax, a reader's digest of poetry. Anybody heard of poetry.com or the book "Nature's echoes"? If someone happens to bump into it, see if you can find my poems, I'd be surprised if they are really in it.
Just to confirm that I am not a poet, I'll let you judge the two semi-finalist poems I wrote. One more quote: "Gerben, you should be genuinely proud of your accomplishment. Of the thousands of poems we read each year, only a fraction can be published."
Relief
standing
in the middle of the night
somewhere
on the edge of a street
pissing
feeling the wind
past your corn
gives you the chills
for just one second
the moment you see the damp
and feel the relief
no more tension on your bladder
this is happiness
(I'm not 100% sure, but I feel the original, which I haven't got anymore, had the word dick head in it, they must have edited as well)
ant
how is it
that a single ant
walks like
he's drunk
why doesn't it walk straight
is it drunk?
or is it
ant logic
too complicated for me
