Bards - Competitions

[Fitzmorgan at cs.com]

In a message dated 1/13/00 9:21:14 PM Pacific Standard Time, Katitcha at aol.com 
writes:

> Lord Robert,
>   This is Katitcha Brendwyth.  I do think that you should be able to at 
least 
> 
>  show a date or period of time for the piece. I think a very long drawn out 
>  type of documentation is a waste of everyone involveds time.  You can do a 
>  great deal with a very little. Also, there are some pieces in which you 
just 
> 
>  can not verify from whence they came due to various reasons.
>  Regards
>  Katitcha Brendwyth Eledin Stovold 
>  Morning Glory Bordermarch

    I do several pieces that are period or based on period sources.  I will 
usually work a line into my introduction indicating that, if I can make it 
feel natural.  To me the point of doing period material is to try and put the 
audience into a different time for a few minutes.   I think you are defeating 
that purpose if you do things in your introduction that remind them that we 
are in the 20th century and just pretending.  I think that it is difficult to 
do much in the way of documentation without crossing that line.  
    Then there is the issue of documenting original works.  Basically you 
can't.  If I happen to use a period verse form for the piece I can document 
that.  But again It's difficult to work that into an introduction while 
staying in persona.  About the best you can do is something along the line 
of, "This is a Sestina I wrote about...."  and hope your judges at least know 
what a Sestina is.  And if you didn't use a period form for the piece you 
can't even do that much.  I have several pieces I do that I call my 'Word 
Fame' pieces.  Poems I've written to praise really neat things I've seen or 
heard about.  I don't always use period forms for these because the point is 
to clearly convey the story and because I usually want to write these quickly 
so I stay with simple verse forms.  When I'm trying to tell a story in verse 
I try and keep the verse form simple so it doesn't get in the way of the 
story.  I think that these pieces are an important part of  my repertoire.  
We need to immortalize the heroes of our current middle ages.  But how do you 
document these pieces?   I don't really think you can.  Does this mean that 
when I enter a bardic competition that requires documentation that I can't 
use these pieces?   It seems a shame because I think they are some of my best 
work.  
    I tried bringing written documentation to competitions but quit after I 
noticed the judges never looked at it till after the competition if at all.  
I don't really fault the judges for this.  What happens during  the 
performance is what is important.  I do get annoyed when I see in an 
announcement that documentation is required for a bardic competition, but no 
indication of what sort of documentation they want and how they want it 
presented.    The up-coming competition to choose the bards for gulf war is 
an example.  They say that they want documentation and we are supposed to 
know what they want.  Yet as far as I know there has never been any consensus 
on what constitutes good bardic documentation.  Mostly because thae issue 
only comes up once or twice a year.  If I bring written documentation are 
they going to read it before my performance, after my performance,  the 
conmpetition or not al all?  

Robert Fitzmorgan
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