Alan-A-Dale Bad Ballad Bonanza & Free Verse Freestyle
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Alan-A-Dale Bad Ballad Bonanza & Free Verse Freestyle was a Robin of Sherwood fan contest, a "bad poetry" competition.
It began in 1990 and ran for at least three years.
Prior to Son of Herne's Con in 1991, the challenge was issued by Lonnie Korenstein for the Second Annual Alan-A-Dale Bad Ballad Bonanza & Free Verse Freestyle:
"All verse, is naturally, required to be in iambic tetrameter rhymed abcb with a refrain including a line such as 'with a hey down derry' or 'Ring ding diddle diddleario, Ring dididdly i-oh.' Or for the truly free versers, simply include one of these now all-too-familiar phrases:
Hakim/say 'ello to A'thur/two men that way/like a May morning/is forgotten/the wheel turns/I serve no/rowboat/the idiot/scum/a leaf driven/it was unrecognizable/you revolting little man/act without/Norman bastards/unclean
...Bring your own dead flowers." (As referenced in the 1993 zine Oaken Heart, taken from the relevant flyer.)
The results from the third contest were to have been published in Herne's Stepchildren #11. The moderator was Lonnie Korenstein and that year's topic was "What I did on my summer vacation in Sherwood."
It's here, It's here, that shocking time of the year.
Tremble good artistes, and shake in fear:
it's time to air all your closeted verse.
the muse is strong,
the muse is nigh,
[phrase in indecipherable calligraphy]
It cannot die.
So send in your best,
or send in your worst;