Verse Competitions

                  Verse Competitions                                              

     Verse competitions are a frightful curse.

They make you wrack your brains to find fit lines

Drawn from experience whilst pressured by

Limits of space and time set by the rules.

     Some find it hard to work creatively

In circumstances such as these because

Their inspiration is inhibited

When brain and mind are shackled by the chains

Of arbitrarily imposed constraints

That can’t be disregarded. Though they try

To liberate their thoughts and feelings, their

Imaginative alchemy remains

Confined, cramped, curbed and contraried.

                                                                                 Art then

Tends to mere artifice, designed to match

Criteria irrelevant to free

Expression of authentic poetry.

      Most poets might prefer their skills to be deployed

      Untrammelled by restrictions that they can’t avoid.

                                                                            J. A. Bosworth