Poetry Slam

I had got together a collection of poems by friends and published them myself. Publishing is easy, distributing and selling is hard. So I had a heap of copies of my small booklet on my hands.
"Maybe you'll be able to sell some at the 'Poetry Slam' at Chapter Arts Centre," a poet friend of mine said.
"What's a 'Poetry Slam'? I asked.
"Come and see," he said.
Well a Poetry Slam is a competition between poets. A poet gets up on stage and reads one or two of his own poems. He is then given marks by a panel of judges (volunteers from the audience) who hold up cards with numbers on them a la "Come Dancing".
"They're short on poets," my poet friend said to me. "So I've put your name forward; you can read something from your booklet."
"Uh?" I said. "I'm not ... er... er... sure I...."
"It's done," he said.
First a young man read some of his poems which I thought weren't poems at all but meanderings of the sort you might get from a drunk wallowing sentimentally in his own misery. Then a young woman performed a wonderful poem, a dramatic piece that everyone applauded enthusiastically. She got 32 out of 40.
Then it was my turn.
I got up and read my poem about what it might have been like if we had been invaded by the Germans in the 2nd World War (which, if they hadn't already figured, told them something about my age).
I got 17 marks.
"Good," said my friend. "You may get into the next round."
Thank God there were some good poets there, and some that made a great impression by their performance techniques, so I didn't have to perform again.
When I got home my wife said "Sell any books?"
"No, but I might have won a competition if I'd had time to prepare. Next time...."
There's been no next time. I still have that heap of books. Anyone want a copy? They're cheap..... in fact you can have one for free if you pay the postage.... no, forget that, I'll pay the postage.... Poems anyone? "If the Germans had come to Wales," anyone?