Okay, not quite. It’s always on the verge of raining here, truth be told. Sigh.

However, there is quite a spring-y competition to tell you about. One in a line of several. This time it is for Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year. See lovely brochure photo.

Like last year, I’m one of the judges for it — and last year believe me we had a whale of a time. The judging was as it was (always interesting) but the celebration night was pretty spectacular. The way it works is: long-listed poems go into an anthology (available on the night); short-listed poets read their work on the night (along with yours truly). From that the top three places are decided, along with, this year, a performance prize. And there’s music. And all in all, it’s a ball. We had well over a hundred folks last year.

So. See flyer. And here are the entry form and rules. Deadline is the end of May. Once again: you know you want to. (p.s. sorry about the darkness of this: it’s colourful in ‘real life’. Can’t figure out why it’s coming up black-y! Oh well. Details are in the rules anyway…)