Event
III Awards for
The
Tipsy Muse Poetry Contest
Autumn
2001
The
topic
And the envelope
please...
The winners'
circle
The current
Tipsy Muse Poetry Contest guidelines
The
Topic
Topic #3:
An epigrams of 1 to 4 rhymed couplets
which somewhere use the word "gardyloo".
And
the envelope please...
— An
(open) letter from Topic #3 Judge, X. J. Kennedy
to Tipsy's right hand man, Mike Juster [p.s.
I have copied Tipsy.] —
Dear
Mike,
Many
thanks for your CARE package of poetry, and
for collecting all those Muse entries. I sat
down at once and devoured them with fascination.
It's really heartening to see so many able poets
still kowtowing to the muse of lightness and
formality.
After deep deliberation, I'd pick the winners
as follows. I hope that, in view of the brevity
of the entries, the difficulty of the challenge,
and the wealth of good stuff, FOUR honorable
mentions might be allowed. I don't know if the
honorable mentions need to be ranked, but in
case they are I'd pick them in the order indicated.
Grand prize winner:
author
of "Without Chemicals Life Itself Would
Be Impossible." This one goes deep, and
(in line two) expands the range of permissible
poetic diction like crazy.
Honorable mentions:
- "New Hearing Aid." What a little
tragedy this poet encompasses in six lines!
It has the ring of truth.
- "Get Out the Pith Helmets!" I'm
a sucker for epigrams about epigrams, even
though to write them is sort of like taking
in your own washing.
- "Slim in Edinburgh."
- "A Grinchy Surprise."
All
of these were written splendidly well, and made
me laugh.
Best regards, ever,
Joe
The
Winners' Circle
Grand Prize
Without
Chemicals Life Itself Would Be Impossible
— By Christopher
Wagner
The
rain in Spain is bound to contain
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,
And wafting discreetly through highland passes
Are colorless, odorless, perilous gases.
Our slops are so modern, so slyly hidden
Nobody minds that the world is a midden,
O blest be this waste without taste or hue!
How quaint it all was to yell ‘gardyloo!’
Click
here
to visit Christopher Wagner's start page.
Honorable
Mention
New
Hearing Aid
— By Larry Eucher
For
thirty years of married life
I thought I had a loving wife,
But kenning now to my dismay,
As I depart to start my day,
That all those years her fond adieu
Was "gardyloo", not "toodle-oo".
Honorable
Mention
Get Out the Pith Helmets!
— By Tony Hoffman
An
epigram should be succinct; it should be pithy,
too
so fill a zinger up with pith and heave it:
“Gardyloo!”
Honorable
Mention
Slim In Edinburgh
— By "Solan"
He
sold the latest diet for the wrecked:
A cigarette with laxative effect!
He found no buyers on the Royal Mile
Though everywhere he looked, he got a smile.
For
on his sign "You can't believe it's true!"
Was added "Surgeon's warning: Gardyloo."
Honorable
Mention
A Grinchy Surprise
— By "lytiamb"
As
the Grinch snuck away, with the tree in his
sack,
From the house of one Cindy Lou Who,
He deserved what he felt on his head and his
back,
And the offal outcry: "Gardyloo!"
The Tipsy Muse Hall of Light 