Thanks for participating in the Tall Tales 1 Poetry Contest! There were a lot of creative entries, and I enjoyed judging my first contest thoroughly!
I set up some “scoring” to help me select:
- Several entries were eliminated for not having the requisite 3-5 stanzas.
- From there, I assigned 1 to 3 points for each of: tall tale, meter, rhyme, and humor.
- A “tall tale” was considered one with a high degree of exaggeration or unbelievability; obviously, there’s some subjectivity here.
- Meter is an interesting subject, and perhaps more on that with another contest, but really the best test of all: reading it out loud. I recommended equal meter, but that’s only a guideline, and some will argue the reading is more important.
- Rhyme was preferred over near-rhyme
- Humor is, of course, subjective, but some entries attempted humor and others, less so.
- Tallying these up, I arrived at a clear winner, a clear second, and 2 entries that were tied for third. I rounded out the top 10 scores with honorable mentions. There were no perfect scores. There are also no perfect judges, at last at PS anyway! :-)
As final thought on meter, consider the following two couplets:
There once was a lady from Freeling (9)
Who had a peculiar feeling. (8)
Once there was a lady from Freeling. (9)
Oddly, she developed a feeling. (9)
The first couplet, though not identical in length, produces a far smoother read in the limerick tradition.
It was a great privilege and honor to review your tall tales, and I look forward to doing so again soon!
-jeff