Competition

In Competition No. 3013 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of August.   There was a whiff of collusion about the entry this week, so many references were there to rubbish television, rubbish weather, fractious kiddies, tired gardens, traffic jams; as Katie Mallett puts it: ‘A turgid time of torpor and delay.’   But there were some sparkling, inventive turns. David Silverman was on pithy form:   Oh, thou cruellest month! If August comes, then winter Can’t be far behind.   Honourable mentions also go to A.H. Harker’s well-turned nod to Eliot, to Paul Freeman and to W.J. Webster, a rare but eloquent fan of August. The winners take £30 and John Whitworth pockets £35.   August, August, it’s the tops.

In Competition No. 3012 you were invited to change a letter in the title of a well-known play and submit a programme note for the new production.   Thanks to Steven Joseph, who suggested this excellent competition topic. David Silverman’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Deaf started well but ran out of steam halfway through. Other promising titles that didn’t quite deliver included The Cheery Orchard, A Waste of Honey and The Wind in the Pillows. And no one, regrettably, did justice to The Bugger’s Opera.   I admired A.H.

In Competition No. 3011 you were invited to submit a disgustingly flattering poem in heroic couplets in praise of a contemporary person of power. You were at your bootlicking best this week: Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci, Xi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin were all on the receiving end of some serious sucking-up. Bill Greenwell’s tribute to Justin Trudeau caught my eye: ‘When all around you, everyone’s a pseudo,/ How gracefully you rise, dear Justin Trudeau…’. As did David Silverman’s love letter to Kim Jong-un: ‘How do you solve a problem like Korea?/ Ask Kim Jong-un, he’s sure to make it clear.

In Competition No. 3010, a nod to the late, great George Romero, you were invited to provide an extract from a mash-up of a literary classic of your choice and horror fiction.   Nathan Weston’s Werewolf Hall, Brian Murdoch’s The Gruffalo in Transylvania, Bill Greenwell’s Three Men and a Zombie and Nicholas MacKinnon’s The Nightmare of Casterbridge were all in with a shout for a place on the winners’ podium. But in a hotly contested week they were squeezed out by the entries below, whose authors earn £25 each. Adrian Fry nabs the extra fiver.   Mr Septimus Harding, warden of Hiram’s hospital, plunged his crucifix into the burning flesh of the ghoul, reflecting upon John Bold’s contention that this role was excessively remunerative.

In Competition No. 3009 you were invited to submit a poem about a domestic object.   I set this challenge with Philip Larkin’s ‘The Mower’ in mind, which he wrote in the summer of 1979 after inadvertently killing a hedgehog while cutting the grass. According to Betty Mackereth, Larkin’s secretary and onetime lover, he told her about the incident ‘…in his office the following morning with tears streaming down his face’.   Your poems made me smile rather than cry: this was another popular comp that drew an entry packed with wit and inventiveness. Alanna Blake, Nathan Weston and Mae Scanlan stood out, and the winners, below, take £25 each. O simple implement, no shrewd machine, No moving parts — just handle wed to bowl.

In Competition No. 3008 you were invited to take the last line of a well-known novel and make it the first line of a short story written in the style of the author in question.   There’s room only for me to lament the lack of space for more winners; the judging process was especially painful and protracted this time around. Those that made the final cut appear below and earn £25 each.   A way a lone a last a loved a long the bookmaster Jimjoist rolled a virgil sheet from the toplady of a freshly complete queer of peeper into his tripewriter thinking.

In Competition No. 3007 you were invited to submit a poem about Larry, the Downing Street cat. Larry came to No. 10 in 2011 from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home during David Cameron’s premiership. He was left behind when the family moved on, though Mr Cameron denied that this was because he hated cats. Although he has been less than impressive in his role as Chief Mouser — apparently spending more time kipping than hunting down rodents — the ten-year-old tabby has inspired a book, a cartoon strip and has accrued 136,000 followers on Twitter. Honourable mentions go to Sylvia Fairley, Frank Upton, Basil Ransome-Davies, Paul Carpenter, Frank Osen and John O’Byrne’s Emily Dickinson-inspired entry.

In Competition No. 3006 you were invited to submit a sonnet that takes as its opening line Keats’s ‘Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:’ (This was a sonnet Keats chose not to publish but transcribed into a long letter he wrote over a period in early 1819 to George and Georgiana Keats, his brother and sister-in-law.)   The challenge drew a pleasingly large, inventive and witty entry which saw you deploy a range of sonnet patterns (there are some 30 variations of the form in The Oxford Book of English Verse).   In an especially closely contested week, Julia Munrow, J. Garth Taylor, Chris O’Carroll, Susan McLean, Virginia Price Evans, Paul Freeman, Alanna Blake, Roger Rengold and Mike Morrison earn a special mention.

In Competition No. 3005 you were invited to take your inspiration from Anthony Lane’s terrific ‘The Book of Jeremy Corbyn’, an account of the general election that ran recently in the New Yorker and was shared widely on social media: ‘And there came from the same country a prophet, whose name was Jeremy. His beard was as the pelt of beasts, and his raiments were not of the finest. And he cried aloud in the wilderness and said, Behold, I bring you hope.’ You were asked to flesh out the story with a version of either ‘The Book of Boris’, ‘The Book of Theresa’, ‘The Book of Tim’ or ‘The Book of Nicola’.   Cod-biblical can be tricky to pull off but you appeared to relish the challenge.

In Competition No. 3004 you were invited to submit an extract from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Trumpland. As I was listening to Kellyanne Conway’s alternative-facts interview earlier this year, Humpty Dumpty’s words from Through the Looking-Glass floated into my mind (‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less’) and it struck me that Donald Trump’s America might be a good candidate for the Carollian treatment.   In what was another closely fought contest, Chris O’Carroll and D.A. Prince were unlucky losers. The winners take £30 each and the bonus fiver is Brian Murdoch’s.

In Competition No. 3003 you were invited to supply clerihews about contemporary politicians. In an enormous and excellent entry, popular rhymes included ‘charmer’ and ‘Starmer’; ‘Boris’ and ‘Horace’; ‘Sturgeon’ and ‘burgeon’; ‘Corbyn’ and ‘absorbing’. Putin likes to ‘put the boot in’, apparently, and that David Davis is, by common consent, a ‘rara avis’.   There was much to admire and it was tricky to sift the best from the merely good. Those that made the cut are printed below and earn their authors £8 each. Commiserations to the rest.

In Competition No. 3002 you were invited to provide lyrics to the European anthem.   The anthem has as its melody the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 but dispenses with Schiller’s words. I wondered if anyone might go back to his 1785 ‘Ode to Joy’ and repurpose the following lines: ‘Yea, if any hold in keeping/ Only one heart all his own/ Let him join us, or else weeping/ Steal from out our midst, unknown.’ No one did, though there were frequent nods in the entry to other parts of the ode.   Over to the winners, who pocket £25 each. John Whitworth was an unlucky loser and W.J. Webster takes the extra fiver.

In Competition No. 3001 you were invited to take inspiration from the recently published Walt Whitman’s Guide to Manly Health and Training and supply an extract from a similar guide penned by another well-known writer. While Whitman extols the benefits of stale bread and fresh air and cautions against eating between meals, Fiona Pitt-Kethley’s John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester advocates a rather less ascetic approach: ‘Swiving’s the only manly exercise/ To tone the glutes and work the inner thighs/ No bench presses, go press a wench instead./ Roll up your yoga mat and go to bed.’ In a small but distinguished entry Mike Morrison takes £30; his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 each. A man must live on the grand scale.

In Competition No. 3000 you were invited to provide an answer, in verse or prose, to a famous literary question of your choosing. Two admirably pithy responses to Hamlet’s dilemma came courtesy of Carolyn Beckingham:   ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question.’ ‘If you’re not certain, wait,’ is my suggestion. The choice to live can be reversed at will; You can’t say that about the choice to kill.   And Dr Bob Turvey:   When Hamlet first posed his old question, Suicide was not worth a suggestion. Because, at the time, ’Twas considered a crime; Dignitas now allows its selection.   And there was much to enjoy elsewhere in a large, lively and varied entry. Bill Greenwell takes the bonus fiver; the rest earn £25.

In Competition No. 2999 you were invited to supply a poem which takes as its first line W.S. Gilbert’s ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one’ but replaces ‘policeman’ with another trade or profession. Although this line doesn’t come until line eight in Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Policeman’s Song’, it was the opening I prescribed and so it was with a heavy heart that I had to disqualify some excellent entries that veered off piste. A competition-setter’s lot is not a happy one, then, but it does have its consolations and I was entertained — and informed — by your parade of teachers, lawyers, coroners, morticians and hitmen. The bonus fiver belongs to David Silverman; the rest earn £25.

In Competition No. 2998 you were invited to submit a set of instructions for an everyday device that have been badly translated into English.   Poorly translated menus are more or less guaranteed to raise a holiday snigger (albeit tinged with a guilty awareness of one’s own linguistic shortcomings), but the challenge here was to amuse while staying the right side of intelligible. This you managed with varying degrees of success.   On the whole, though, your entries were well-judged: funny, charming, poignant even. Commendations go to Max Ross and Brian Murdoch. And to P.C.

In Competition No. 2997 you were invited to submit an obituary for planet Earth.   It was a smallish but varied and heartfelt entry. John Whitworth earns the bonus fiver and his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 apiece. Honourable mentions go to C.J. Gleed, D.A. Prince and Duncan Forbes.   In an obituary There’s no room for bitchery, So let’s say the earth Had some things of worth.   Angels and fairies, Cats and canaries, Camels and kiddyoes, Attenborough videos,   Woodlands for walking in, Teashops for talking in, Kitchens for cooking in, Mirrors for looking in.   Pity you blew it, But how did you do it? God alone knows, And that’s me I suppose. John Whitworth   We are sorry to learn that Earth has passed away.

In Competition No. 2996 you were invited to submit an acrostic sonnet in which the first letters of each line spell AT THE SPECTATOR. You weren’t obliged to make the theme of your sonnet this magazine and its contributors but many of you did, to great effect. (The tone was mainly though not universally affectionate.)   Dorothy Pope, Joseph Houlihan, George Thomson and Paul A. Freeman deserve a special mention for eye-catching contributions, and the winners, printed below, pocket £25 each. W.J. Webster takes £30.   A nest of singing birds they may not be (Too individual in the way they speak); Their talents, though, make quite a company, High-class performers writing week on week.

In Competition No. 2995 you were invited to submit ribald limericks as they might have been written by a well-known poet. William Baring-Gould, who wrote a history of the genre, noted that when a limerick appears, sex is not far behind And the writer Norman Douglas considered limericks to be ‘jovial things… a yea-saying to life in a world that has grown grey’. The cheering winners of what was a hugely popular comp are rewarded with £8 each.   Though most of my loves are Platonicer, It was always quite different with Monica. If I’ve got a hard ’un Down there in the garden, We do it behind the Japonica. John Whitworth/Philip Larkin   Although candy is dandy, what’s finer And much quicker is liquor, so wine her.

In Competition No. 2994 you were invited to submit a letter of complaint from a fictional character to his, hers or its creator complaining about their portrayal. There are some long lines this week (blame Poe) and as the standard was high, I’ll step aside to make space for six winners. The excellent entries printed below earn their authors £25 each.   Weak and weary, ever yearning, when the midnight oil is burning; In a rare trochaic meter bygone sorrows you explore. As you sit there ruminating, pondering your woes, I’m stating That I find it nauseating, this obsession with Lenore, For you treat me with derision, eulogise your teenage whore, Sadly, not your only flaw.