This AllPoetry contest asked us to write a poem about Nick Drake.

Nick was a singer songwriter who recorded three albums in 1969, 1971 and 1972:  Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None was a commercial success. 

He also suffered from depression, and died from an overdose of antidepressants in 1974. After his death, his work influenced a number of other musicians, and his "fame" has grown over the years. Musicians know of him, the general public not so much. I found out about him probably in the 2000s, proceeded to track down those three albums, plus a couple of other miscellaneous albums that had some extra songs and fragments. I love the poetry in his lyrics.

I touched on two of the album titles (Five Leaves Left and Blue Moon). The second line of his song Day Is Done reads "Down to earth then sinks the sun", the second line of the poem is "Kills your thoughts to find the sun" - the meter is identical as well as the end word, and I kept that meter for the whole poem. It is quite reminiscent of his style. In a similar manner, I used the word "blue" to reference a song "Way To Blue", the second line of which also ends in "sun."

Three verses, rhyme scheme ABBA, meter trochaic trimeter with a monosyllabic final foot. So it goes DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM. 

I was really pleased with the poem, which didn't take much time to write - probably because I had already been entranced by Nick's music and sad about his story. The judge appeared to recognise this too, as the poem won a gold award.