The winner of the sixth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest was announced today. The contest, conducted by Winning Writers, seeks to raise awareness of vanity anthology publishing schemes by “mak[ing] light of the low standards of widely publicized free poetry contests sponsored by Poetry.com (Owings Mills, Maryland), the Famous Poets Society, the League of American Poets, and similar organizations.”
Erica Angle-Newman of Alta Loma, California will take home a cash prize of $1,359 for her poem, “Pumpernickel: A Poem Written in Mock-Shelley,” along with the undying renown of following in the footsteps of the original Wergle Flomp, poet David Taub, who went to heroic lengths in his (unsuccessful) attempts to get Poetry.com to send him a rejection slip. There are also second and third prize winners, and twelve Honorable Mentions.
Do check out the winning poems–they’re hilarious. As a teaser, here’s the last two stanzas of Ms. Angle-Newman’s winning entry:
I ran out of the house—she had stopped in the lane
To roll down her window and scream at me, “Jump
Back Jesus! Letting kitties out in this street is insane—
But don’t worry dearie, he felt but a bump.”
Then she tossed out rouge samples, saying, “Now don’t complain.
The kitty’s kitty spirit will transcend the kitty lump.”
And if this is true, then this new star tonight
Familiarly flicks like tail triumphant out in space.
I’ll name thee Pumpernickel. Shine! Flick your light!
Among the kitty-littered stars, you now hold your place.
Sam! You forgot to anonymize yourself!
I can’t help but admire the name of this poetry competition. It sounds like the name of one of the Hogan Hero’s anti-heroes. Very German. Very duncy. Very cute. Some hideous bitch like you probably thinks genocide is cute, too. What’s the trophy shaped like? A Swastika? We all know you Victoria and how anti-Semitic you and the AW gang are – oceans of rhetoric have already been blogged on the matter.
If you’d quit being so PR-whore cutesy dootsey and would actually write some fiction, maybe the world would know you as something a bit better than a frustrated, ethnically twisted midlist hack writer, you sad extension of womankind.
A well-deserved win! It reminds me of some spam mail I’ve received. Little do these spammers know but their compositions of absurd, unrelated phrases could possibly win them a prize. Or at least a rejection.
Oh … My … Word. I think I’m in love with Wergle Flomp. Thank you, Victoria.