This Issue contains twenty poems, six by newcomers to Lighten Up Online one of whom has never been published anywhere before now. This mix, I reckon, makes it one of the most satisfying Issues to have appeared so far.. And on top of that Jerome Betts has come up with my most-favourite-ever poem title.
Question -- What do you get if you write a poem based on changing just one letter in the opening line of a well-known poem?
Answer -- One of the most ingenious and entertaining of recent Spectator Competitions.
It was obviously a natural for Lighten Up Onliners. Three of our unsuccessful entries appear in this Issue -- two of them at least as clever as the winners and the third which may well have caused the competition’s judge to call for the smelling-salts and Rescue Remedy. (You have been warned!)
And, talking of shock and nervous exhaustion, this is first the Issue which has seen the Editor try to become more involved with the technical mumbo jumbo of getting stuff on to the actual pages. His attempts to persuade a heartless Technical Dept. that hyperventilation is not good for those who have passed their biblically- recommended use-by date cut no ice -- merely a trite and inaccurate comment about one never being too old to learn.
The result is that, even as you read this, the Editor is lying down in a darkened room, calmed only by the sounds of whale music and the gentle gurgling of wine bottles held at an angle of approximately thirty degrees. If you want errors corrected please knock very gently -- preferably some time during 2012.
My thanks and admiration go to all who appear in this Issue. Light Verse is alive and well!
Enjoy it.
Martin Parker.