Poetry Tombola

I spent today at the 'Made in Assynt' craft fair in Lochinver, having decided that the craft of writing deserved to take a stall. I am pleased with the result, having sold plenty of books, more than I expected, with The Last Bear, my novel, being particularly popular. I also sold quite a few of my new hand-made pamphlets, called Earth Wonderings (also available from my website, here).

The most pleasing thing was that I decided to have a bit of fun by running a poetry tombola - just like a standard tombola, except that every ticket was 50p and was guaranteed to win a prize. All the prizes were poems, on cards, and tickets with round numbers won something special - a book or a pamphlet. I gradually worked out that saying to people 'I bet you've never done poetry tombola' proved almost irresistable, and those who gave it a go seemed to like their prize a lot. Maybe the problem with poetry is just that it's not random enough, and doesn't come in small enough packages. Poetry tombola players of Assynt, I salute you!

I was also offering instant poetry, but no-one took up the challenge of paying me to write a poem for them, there and then. I shall offer it again next time, just in case...