Under a pseudonym I recently entered a competition run by Poetry.com since entry was FREE and I had a few minutes to spare. Imagine my amazement when I received an e-mail informing me that I had won a CRYSTAL Vase. Unfortunately in order to CLAIM my prize it appears that I have to join a club $60 and travel to a POETRY CONGRESS in the USA to pick it up where I may WIN other prizes. I seem to recall that a tempting $100,000 was mentioned.
Well, I don't think I'd have much chance being up against the likes of Andrew MOTION and Seamus HEANEY who are certain to be competing with such an amazing jackpot on offer. Therefore I won't be going.
Gwilym Williams

The story continues. SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE is to be published in a handsome COFFEE TABLE anthology and I'm in line for a GOLD PIN and a SILVER MEDAL. My bank manager won't be pleased when I tell him what all this is costing me.

So what did it take to become a GOLD PIN / SILVER MEDAL / CRYSTAL VASE award-declined poet?
Well here's the answer, in all its vainglory. Let it be a lesson to us all:

"SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE"

In 1810 in the University of Vienna
they opened Jospeh Haydn's large head
and found in there a lot of music
104 symphonis for a start
and then delving deeper they discovered
the sonatas and the masses and the concertos
and even beyond them in dark corners
they discovered innumerable lesser pieces
or pieces they believed to be of less worth
shall we say - it was all quite a performance
all those professors and their instruments
measuring the skull's bumps and working out
the cranial index but in the end the whole thing
was futile and Haydn's great head was returned
not to his body in the mausoleum
but to the jar of formaldehyde with its label
along with lesser heads lined-up like notes
on shelves along the cellar walls
where it remained in peace and pungent gas
obtained by the partial oxidation of methyl alcohol.

Gwilym Williams

An e-mail brings news of an EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD for OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY and the opportunity to order a 3-CD SET featuring 33 tracks including the award winning "SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE" set to an atmospheric background of baroque music. It's all costing a princely fortune.
- "play the desperate chess [...] Pawn your castles, lords!" (Ezra Pound)

Gwilym Williams

SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE has now passed the semi-final stage in the free-to-enter-no-strings-attached-competition. The poem has been read and discussed by the Selection Committee. It is in line for one of 104 prizes.
The 200-page coffee table book containing the poem is soon to be published and is offered for only fifty, sixty, or seventy pounds to me (ten pounds below list price anyway) including p&p. I can't quite fathom out all the various options. It depends on a slip-cover, a thumbnail biography and I don't know what else. There's lots of bits of paper.
Unfortunately I can't spare the cash. Fact is I'm saving up for a coffee table.

Gwilym Williams

It seems that all good things must come to an end and sadly SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE is proving to be no exception. Today's e-mail from the judges brings the almost-tearful news that EUTERPE has been "rejected" and "won't be published" in an anthology! Could this sudden change of heart have anything to do with the fact that I didn't order a coffee table book, a boxed cd set, a gold pin, a silver medal etc.? Surely not!
On the bright side I've been invited to entered another poem. I shan't bother.
Like Jospeh Haydn's head (see above) I will remain in "peace and pungent gas".

Euterpe's advice: Purchase and read 'proper' poetry books, like the inspirational 'Poem for the Day' (Chatto & Windus) edited by the late Nicholas Albery, for example.

Breaking News!
EUTERPE, as one of the 12% best poems received in the competition, is in line for a US$10,000 prize. Final judging is slated to take place in January 2008.
Meanwhile I've been invited to join a poetry club and receive many benefits including a magazine containing even more competitions, the Editor's Choice plaque and a certificate of membership. Total cost of these latest extras, a mere US$89 including postage.
As an inducement to part with more of my brass I'm informed that I'll be joining elite company. The names of Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu and Johnny Cash have been mentioned!

More breaking news! Today's e-post brings the news that EUTERPE's author Bill Jackson (i.e. your humble scribe) has been nominated by the Board of Directors and The Advisory Committee as a DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF POETS.
Pretty good going for Bill Jackson - he who has only written one poem SEARCHING FOR EUTERPE in his whole amazing poetic career to be already in the poetic stratosphere with distinguuished company such as PULITZER PRIZE WINNING POETS and the like! Oh, by the way did I mention the annual US$163 all this bardic distinction is going to cost old BJ?
Pity they didn't they nominate this next TSE for a BASIC MEMBERSHIP. At a bargain $68 a year - a mere financial klax!
Don't forget folks - only 1 month to the mega-bucks prize awards. With his poetry already at Pulitzer level old BJ must be in with a fighting chance. With 141 great prizes up for grabs surely he can't miss!

But wait - a follow-up e-post just zoomed into the in-tray. The votes are in!!!
Which votes these are, I've no idea. The upshot is that EUTERPE's author has progressed to PUBLISHED POET RIBBON AWARD and OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT level. What this involves is poor old Bill Jackson having to send off for a wristwatch and other paraphernalia including the coveted ribbon. This cranks up another US$119 that Bill Jackson's dear wife, in the corner sewing on a button, is going to have a sleepless night worrying about.
The smarmy Howard Ely signs the poetic news bulletin with a flourish and wishes the single-poem poetic genius Bill Jackson and his family all the best for the holiday season. By 'holiday season' we presume he means Christmas, the time of giving.
'Where's Charles Dickens when we need him?' That's what Mrs. BJ would like to know.

Awaiting the nailbiting January announcement of the fate of his OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT 'EUTERPE' poem in the long-winded vanity stakes contest your ever patient bardic correspondent was recently stunned to discover that a poet very close to him has emerged as a last-minute challenger.
Without any prior warning a thick envelope containing the good news flopped on the doormat of Bill Jackson's mystery friend.
So what is this rival poem now challenging for honours? What is this poem that has "an excellent chance of winning one of 104 cash or gift prizes"?
In fact there is only one cash prize when you wade through the paper swamp and it's a paltry $1,000. The 103 remaining prizes described as 'medals' are said to be worth between $25 and $50 apiece.
Tossing aside the various bits of glossy paper and the order forms for cases of 12 books reduced from $839 to $369 plus $48 shipping the one poem genius Jackson eventually unearthed his poetic colleague's precious gem. Here it is in all its vainglory. Make of it what you will:

An Ice Cream from Wallace Stevens

We lick the basic brick
cold between the crispy wafers
around the edges with our
elongated black-tipped
salamander tongues
and taste the various flavours;
vanilla,
strawberry,
raspberry,
choc-chip bits,
insect,
dirt,
gold,
broken glass. Only to find
it's always the same
jingle-jangle in the
ice-cream game.

Your correspondent, as one of "today's most talented poets and songwriters", has dutifully checked the world's most famous vanity poetry website just in case a lucky prize winner has already been announced. Nothing yet to report on that score.
A trawl through the entries sent in from household names reveals that Seamus Heaney has entered this time - 'Digging for Blackberries'. Not to be outdone the ladies have a worthy entrant in Sylvia Plath with her poem - 'Pounding Headache'. Although quite how Sylvia managed to post her entry from beyond the grave is something of a mystery.
Optimistic Bill Clinton (see above) has entered the contest once again. This time with his poem 'Monicas Lips' (sic). No submissions yet from Dylan
Thomas, Andrew Motion or Ted Hughes.
Mrs Bill Jackson is in the kitchen at the crack of dawn these days preparing the gruel, crossing off the dates on her free charity calendar, waiting for the postman...

Bill Jackson and his EUTERPE poem have mysteriously disappeared from the computer files at VANITY POETRY HQ! And the date of the great $1,000 prize announcement, which old BJ has long waited for, fending off his bank manager for almost a year, has been moved from the end of January to February 15th.
Don't give up! Send them another, bawls Mrs BJ from under the kitchen sink where she's currently working on the u-bend with with a large spanner. And so:
POEMS ON THE WAY
Through electronic space the poems hasten!
All year long with silent plea
Their messages tied to their feet -
Sometimes in their sharp beaks.
O how Euterpe is crucified anew
Like the babies at Christmas
In the postal sorting offices -
Bound up with string and tape and glue.

Bill Jackson is now a 'Poet Fellow'. Following a recent board meeting at the impressively named Nobel House, nothing to do with the Nobel Prize by the way - just in case you thought it was, the long awaited honour has finally been forthcoming. And it comes only days before the official announcement of the winner of the World's No.1 Vanity Poetry Competition in which, readers will recall that old BJ (perhaps that should now read Prof. or Dr. Bill Jackson) has a poem on the final judging table.
Mrs BJ, chopping the parsley in the kitchen, wants to know where Old BJ reckons the money is going to come from for the 18kt gold lapel badge that he requires to display his new found status. "I'll make you one from cardboard," she grumbles. "And don't foget we have to pay the milkman this month," she adds sourly.

Your Poet Fellow has now checked the Great Vanity Poetry Website for details of the winning poem announcement. 'This Poem is not available' is the result - in large bold type. The latest e-mail from Vanity Poetry HQ invites BJ to send his beloved a Valentine Card displaying his 'unique talent'. A pity that BJ's poem was about a severed head in a bottle. Fortunately a tiny pot of spindly daffodils now stands on the kitchen window. 'Maybe we can plant them in the garden next year,' beams Mrs BJ, 'her heart fluttering with love and delight.'

A 3-page communique´ from Vanity Poetry HQ brings sensational news! Bill Jackson (yes, old BJ who didn't even win a silver medal in the last long-winded contest but was finally elevated to Poet Fellow status) is invited to compose a new poem for publication in 'The Best Poems and Poets of 2007'. The "distinguished group" comprises "200 of the Best Poets who were selected". Another $1,000 prize and an assortment of medals is on offer. And there is no obligation to buy anything. It all sounds too tempting. But then, that's the idea isn't it?
Poet Fellow Bill Jackson won't be bothering this time round. Mrs BJ has drawn a line in the sand - "One ride on the Magic Roundabout is enough," she says, "hunting feverishly in a drawer for a light bulb.

Never say die, is today's motto. The postlady has just arrived at the bardic residence with a large white envelope containing nothing less than an engraved bronze medal. Yes, old BJ is a third prize winner! The medal, quite heavy, is engraved 'International Open Amateur Poetry Contest Winner'. So it can be done! You can win a medal without buying a book! But don't try it without your partner's permission, advises Mrs BJ, screwing-in an energy saving bulb which contains mercury and other unkown hazards.

But is it real bronze or a good quality ersatz bronze? (BronzLite?) I once overhead some customers in shop discussing a wallet. "Yes," one said, "I know its fake leather but its a good quality fake leather."