Love so pure it is best distilled in syllables
THE 2012 Sunday Age Love Poetry competition
has already attracted more entries than last year's total -
including a swag of poems from students at Shelford Girls Grammar.
A selection of the poems will be published in The Sunday Age and all will appear online. The person who pens the poem judged best wins a copy of The New Faber Book of Love Poems.
For those who wish to enter, there are two conditions. Poems need to be about the strange and sometimes unhappy madness of falling in love. And all poems need to be just 11 lines.
The idea is to follow the Japanese tradition of working to a pattern of syllables. The starting point is the most famous form of syllabic poetry, the haiku, three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. For example:
Oh Lord Almighty
Please bless me with that sweetheart
In the satin shorts.
The next step is two lines of seven syllables.
I'm as giddy as a lamb,
When I walk to her corner.
You now have five lines with a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7: almost halfway. Now repeat the pattern.
She always says ''hi''
And smiles in a weary way
When I wave ''goodnight''.
Once we shared a cigarette
And a doorway in the rain
Finally, you add one more line of five syllables to glue it all together.
Like real sweethearts do.
To enter, send your poem to [log in to unmask] by 5pm Monday, February 6, with ''Sunday Age Poetry Competition'' in the header. No attachments please and include the name of your suburb.
I won't be entering, but recall fondly how I once entered a Valentines' Day competition for poems beginning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
and won - a limo ride with my loved one to a good Italian restaurant with a free ride down the menu and wine list, with the limo to take us home again.
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