national poetry day

The theme for this year’s National Poetry Day in the UK is stars. In conjunction with this, the Poetry Society ran a competition with the theme stripes for Stanza members.

I often wonder how judges can hope to choose ‘the best’ of a competition’s entries when all the poems are different styles and topics, so I definitely like competitions that either suggest a theme or demand a specific poetic form, as I feel there is then at least one identifiable point of comparison.
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Well, in the UK, at least, it’s a national day and there’s plenty about it in all the national newspapers. The Guardian, for example, reports a selection of news and associated snippets.

This year’s theme is “heroes and heroines”. I can’t think of any poems in my files that fit that theme, and I certainly can’t produce one to order. So here’s one which refers to the ex-prime minister – definitely not a hero of mine. The poem was published in the South Bank Poetry Magazine a while back.
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