Community Corner

Saline Celtic Festival Limerick Contest Looking For Contestants

The annual limerick contest will be judged by Leslee Niethammer, Patrick Little and Nicola Rooney.

The 2012 Saline Celtic Festival at , set for July 13-14, is seeking contestants for the annual limerick contest.

The contest is open to anyone. There is no charge. Attendance at the festival on July 13 is not required to win prizes in the four age-based divisions. A fifth class, called "Late Poets," has been added for last-minute entries.

The age groups are 15 and under, 16-20, 21-25, and Master Class (over 25)

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Celtic and Salinian themes are encouraged.

Judges are Leslee Niethammer, director of the Saline District Library, Patrick Little, former Mayor of Saline and founder the Saline Celtic Festival, and Nicola Rooney, owner of Nicola's Books.

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Limericks must be maled to by July 4, with one poem per envelope, to the Saline Celtic Festival office. Address the letters to Saline Celtic Festival — Limericks, Saline City hall, 100 N. Harris St., Saline, MI, 48176. Or email pplouff@salinecelticfestival.org.

Here are rules:

  • Must be an original poem, otherwise unpublished, and presented/signed by its author.

  • Must hew closely to the classic metric form of the Limerick poem (sample in K, below).

  • May be rude, a bit crude, or even a touch lewd, but must not be plainly obscene, blasphemous, or otherwise patently offensive.  We are hoping to have a pastor as a judge, for Goodness’ sake.

  • Must include name, address, and age of entrant; phone and e-mail info optional.

  • Must be easily and clearly legible.

  • Becomes the property of the Saline Celtic Festival.
    • There are no fees to enter the Limerick Contest.  Prizes will include excellent poetic and literary items, and will be awarded to the first-place finishers in each category.

    • Submitters who attend the Festival may be favored slightly over non-attendees, but no absentee submitters will be excluded on the basis of attendance.

  • All walk-in submissions at the Festival will be welcomed, but those entrants will compete as members of the “Late Poets Society.”

  • Preferred themes in the poems are the glorious aspects of Saline, Celtic culture, Celtic tribes and nations, traditional Celtic foods and beverages, and kilts.  These aspects are not mandated, but are merely suggested with a strong nudge and a couple of winks, if you know what I mean . . .

  • No Saline Celtic Festival committee chair, poobah, or judge may compete for prizes or officially sanctioned glory.  Close relatives of aforementioned chairs, poobahs, and judges may enter under withering scrutiny by the poetical scrutineers at the Festival.

  • The judges will not be easily swayed by bribes, but conveyors of foam-headed beverages are always held in high esteem on hot summer days.

  • Non-first-place finishers in the final competition round will receive an “Honorable Mention” certificate from the Festival.

  • After July 4th, entries must be hand-delivered to the Limerick judges on Festival Friday.

  • If a prize winner is not present at the Festival at the moment of winning, written/printed proof of age and identity may be required (since we wish to exclude any adult writers masquerading as children in plaid skirts).

  • If an entry is found to have been copied from another source, the submitter may be publicly vilified and possibly even cursed.

  • Exemplar of the most typical, most classic Limerick poetic meter:

    baa DUM baa baa DUM baa baa DUM (baa),
    baa DUM baa baa DUM baa baa DUM (baa),
    baa DUM baa baa DUM,
    baa DUM baa baa DUM,
    baa DUM baa baa DUM baa baa DUM (baa).

  • For more information about this and other Saline Celtic Festival events, visit www.salineceltic.org.


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