For Competition 3443 you were invited to submit a dear John letter in the style of a well-known writer.
The brief stipulated 16 lines but you submitted both verse and prose and I allowed both. I very much enjoyed Sue Pickard’s Bram Stoker: ‘My dear Count, I can barely summon the energy to write this letter as my haemoglobin levels are so low but write it I must…’. And Alan Millard’s Oscar Wilde: ‘The truth is that I have met someone who loves me almost as much as I love myself…’. I was also sorry not to have room for Andrew Simpson’s fruity D.H. Lawrence, Bill Greenwell’s T.S. Eliot, Richard Warren’s Andrew Marvell and George Simmers’s Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.
The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the authors of those entries printed below.
You walk in beauty like the night,
but it’s a little dark in here,
and I prefer a shade more bright
to cheer me up this time of year.
Though I’ve adored your raven tresses
and your softly mellow face,
I’d like to have some fun with Bess’s
golden hair. And Lady Grace.
I’m also partial to more tawny
locks, especially when they
are coupled with firm chins and brawny
arms to keep the cold at bay.
I might give you another ring
when Helios returns in spring.
Mary McLean/Byron
Dear John, You might recall my heart
Was like a singing bird. Alas,
It’s muted now; its empty nest
Is only scraps of dead-brown grass.
No rainbows grace my clouded skies,
The sea is colourless, at best.
My heart is far from what it was,
And I won’t bore you with the rest.
The watered shoot sits in a swamp.
Our gold and purple crazy times
Are bleached to wint’ry tones, and they
Are redolent of northern climes.
But let’s drop metaphors and be
As blunt as ex-es. Here’s to say,
With no embroidery, goodbye.
I’ll find another bird. And tree.
D.A. Prince/Christina Rossetti
Let me now to the marriage of two minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Whose progress steadfastly doth downhill grind,
Conspiring with the remover to remove.
A values misalignment kills the ‘we’,
Our new love’s vows are quietly undone,
And mismatched energies, for all to see,
Doth dampen hopes that shone like summer’s sun.
’Tis neither thee nor I that is at fault,
But like a seesaw weighted at one end,
The balance tip’d, the outcome hard to halt –
A fault no effort ever yet could mend.
Sadly, I send this scroll by WhatsApp text
And wish you well whoe’er may be your next.
Ralph Goldswain/Shakespeare
Dear Joan,
I was thinkin of how you larffed about me sayin I don’t like girls, wot with our Natral History studies, in the shrubbbry and then Ginger says he is the Leder of the Outlaws cos all I think about is love and how they all most lost the fite with the Hubert Lane-ites cos you and I were doin Natral History, and so this is FareWell as We Past This Way But Wunce. And Jumble has manje.
Also, since Mr Bott died from Kallisthenics and Violet Elizabeth had Mrs Bott taken away cos of her vapers she has neded a matyure man of bisness to hassist her with money and stuff, speshully now she has bought Ol Moss’s sweethshop. So you mite just see me walkin around with her but just cos of bisness. We can still meet in the shrubbbry but more casional.
Yours sinseerely
William Brown
Nick Syrett/Richmal Crompton
Dearest,
You will excuse my recording at first that it is with more than a chequered melange of feelings that I raise my pen to address you, plangently aware that the slipperiness of language lies in wait to ‘hijack’ the best of intentions, but there are moments when candour must be allowed free rein, whatever the upshot. In short, I have relocated to Rye, a pleasant Sussex village offering relief from the ‘racy’ and clamorous life of the capital where I shall be able to resume the ‘vie professionelle’ of an artist without undue distraction.
Permit me to realise that I am acquainted with you well enough to judge that you would not relish a long, rough journey over more than bumpy – indeed, bone-jarring – roads, which would be a sacrifice that I cannot permit. Few things are permanent in this life but I must sadly make our parting one.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Henry James
Dear John
It’s not me, it’s you. Can’t do this any more. Whatever this is. It’s complicated. Not the right word. Maybe it is. Feel like I don’t really know how I feel. I love you. Don’t love you. Both. Neither. There’s no one else. Not in that way. Well. So. It’s just… Remember that time in Trieste? Me saying how I thought monogamy was a prefabricated cultural dynamic designed to perpetuate patriarchal hegemony. You saying, ‘Wait, Arsenal have scored!’ Me saying, ‘Sod frigging Arsenal, I’m trying to…’ Me flinging that focaccia at you. You just eating it then we had sex? Eight times? That’s exactly what I mean! Don’t you even get it? My frigging focaccia! Depressed even thinking about it. Feel like you’ve no comprehension what it’s like. To feel like you’re feeling something so bloody intensely and to have absolutely no idea what it is you’re feeling. So.
David Silverman/Sally Rooney
No. 3436: Love is…
You are invited to submit a poem whose first line is ‘O my love is like [fill in the gap]’ and continue for up to a further 16 lines. Email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 February.
Comments