2011 Story and Poem of the Year

Massive surprise and great end to the year - I always feel very proud to get poem of the week so this is amazing, particularly considering the quality of the other poets on here.

I'm really struggling to write at the minute, but a post by Lavadis about what ABCtales means to him put it all into perspective for me. My early resolution is to stop whingeing about being too busy etc and just write - oh and to stop swearing all the time. I'm sure it will last longer than my usual resolution to stop eating all the pies.

Congratulations also to jlb and alibob and a Happy New year to one and all for Sunday. :-)

Rokkitnite was considered for Poem of the Year, was he? That's odd. The only poem he's posted on here this year is about a condom in some dog shit.

Ah Archie, ever the smart-arse and so often wrong.

Tim posted this poem on January 13th and it was Poem of the Week:

http://www.abctales.com/story/rokkitnite/scholar

Pip pip,
Tony

Do you mean the poem that contains these lines:

"He gripped his stick and fished a
Prophylactic from a foggy pool
Then with a frown, he set it down,
Atop a flyblown doggy stool

A sheath spread in the middle
Of a moist and greenish turd
Said I: ‘Is this a riddle?’
But he did not speak a word
A condom in some dog mess
Yet he did not speak a word"

But of course, it clearly isn't a poem about a condom in some dog shit, because I'm always wrong about everything.

I don't have a problem with Tim, he's an old mate of mine from university. But he does seem to be a part of a clique that I'm not a part of - a clique of various people who were in the same year of the same course at the same university as me.

I don't care about not being a member of this clique, or about not being considered for Poem of the Year. I just think it's a bit odd that someone who only posts one poem all year, which is about a condom in some dog shit, is considered, while this isn't:

http://abctales.com/story/archie-macjoyce/end-my-youth

I just find it a bit odd. That's all. I don't like having to blow my own trumpet, but if no-one else is going to say anything, then I'm just going to have to. I spend several weeks writing the best, most important poem I've ever written, about the direst events of my life, in perfect detail, in 70 Shakespearean sonnets with a strict pattern of masculine and feminine rhymes, and it's not considered as good as a poem about a bloke who fishes a condom out of a lake and sticks it in some excrement.

The fact that you can't even remember what Tim's poem was about makes me wonder...

Silence as usual... what a surprise...

I've come to expect that as the normal response when I'm inconveniently right about something. That and "Mac is wrong because I said so, because I said so."

I'm honestly not bothered about not being considered for Poem of the Year. I am, however, a bit bothered by the cliquery on this site.

Other than fatboy, who won, five people were considered for Poem of the Year, of whom three are from the same year of the same course at the same university. I'm sure the only reason Joe Dunthorne isn't on the list is because he didn't post anything at all last year.

I have nothing against any of these people - I know all of them and they're perfectly fine individuals, as well as good poets. But that doesn't change the fact that there is cliquery going on.

Tim's poem is quite amusing. Poem of the Week was very possibly well deserved. But poem of the year? No way, mate. Not even close.

I think the poem was about the use of language not one specific and small piece of it.

There is no cliquery - sure that year at UEA who joined up on ABC are a very fine bunch of writers and, let's face it, their massive success means that we aren't the only ones to think so.

They will be considered at this time of year for the big prize because they are very, very good. Your poem was wonderful but it didn't knock me out in the same way that fatboy's did. I know that you just like a good row and I'm reluctant to give you one - I've got better things to do with my life - but I do wish you'd just take a step backwards sometimes and consider holding your tongue.