O Ralph I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you. Your bantering and humour makes me want to check my-mail often. I want to know why the poet laureate"position "doesn't come with a set of rules, a job description, a box on the org chart and report to a president . Maybe I missed some of the 1947 rules beacause not only didn't I have e-mail, I couldn't read or comprehend rules. When I aged sufficiently to understand rules, I always had more fun breaking them.
Audrey Coward ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ralph Copleman" <rcople...@comcast.net> To: <osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:10 AM Subject: Poetry donnybrook > Look, > > When I enter a poetry contest that I'm told will be decided by vote, I don't > expect people to change the rules after the entry period has concluded. > That's like, I dunno, changing the Law of Two Feet into, perhaps, the Law of > One Arm and One Leg midway through an open space meeting! Vote me up or > vote me down. Either way, I can take it. > > Second, the official rules of the OS Poetry Contest (you could look this up > anywhere you want to find it) say quite unequivocally that a person may > submit a poem after the entrance period has been closed. I made this rule > myself when I organized the first contest back in 1947, so I know it's true. > The fact that it's a stupid rule and the fact that when the rule was > formulated there was no such thing as e-mail should have no bearing on > whether Harrison's poem may be included. He's out there suffering terribly. > Let the poor guy in already. > > (I do, however, propose another new rule based on Harrison's poem. Any > entry, I should think, needs to have more than 50% of its content come from > the submitting poet, not Rene Descartes. (I mean, if HO wins, who gets the > prize? Does he have to share it with the dead guy? Or what? I think this > rule should also apply to Otto von Bismarck, whom I believe is also dead, > although more recently, and several other people, too.) > > Lastly, voting, like the Law of Two Feet, is more an expression of > preference, not necessarily a judgment of quality. If it were the latter, I > would probably never vote. Have you seen the "quality" of American > politicians lately?! > > So, let's all hurry up and vote for Joelle's poem and get on with getting it > on. > > Ralph Copleman > > P.S. Be careful about subscribing to any of my political opinions. I live > in New Jersey (USA), where the saying "Vote early and often" was first > coined. > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, > Visit: > > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html