Tuesday

I promised myself I would write this post whatever happened. Saturday saw me taking two of my precious poetry-collages through the rain to the local art gallery to enter them into the Pindar East Coast Open. The framer had said cheerfully, you never know this weather might put off a number of entrants. In other words my chances of being selected could be higher because of the snow and the rain. I skulked into the building and out again without meeting the eyes of any of the other hopefuls with hands full of oblong packages of various sizes.

Then three days passed. Excitement would come in waves, perhaps even now my creations were being reverentially placed onto the yes side of the decision room. Only to be quashed, who did I think I was pretending to be a real artist?

Finally at the end of this afternoon I rang the prescribed number. An efficient sounding young woman looked my name up. "No, I'm sorry your pieces have not been selected this time around."

"Thank you," I said. Though what I really wanted to do was wail: you've got it wrong, they're perfect, they're fragments of my soul. To scream: how can you turn them down, you're philistines, you know nothing about art, call yourself an art gallery?! There are few times when exclamation marks come into my writing, this occasion warrants it, however.

I have no way of knowing whether I nearly didn't get in or whether what I offered was thrown to one side with deriding laughter. I'd prefer to believe the former, and perhaps, if only, there'd been even more inclement weather Saturday...