Competition

In Competition No. 2953 you were invited to supply a sonnet that has the name of a tree hidden in every line. This fiendish challenge, which was suggested by a reader, drew a large entry — and the following envoi from Alanna Blake: ‘Gor blimey, not the easiest of romps!/ But, Lucy, press on with these teasing comps.’ Fourteen-liners mean room for seven winners this week. High fives to unlucky losers John Priestland, Nicholas Hodgson and Matt Quinn; 20 quid each to those below; Frank McDonald takes the bonus fiver. The Roman gods were wittier than ours; They could appear in shapes that fooled our sense, Bamboozling hapless maidens with their powers And giving those that pined some recompense.

In Competition No. 2952 you were invited to submit nonsense verse of up to 16 lines on the subject of the EU referendum. So, as if you hadn’t had quite enough nonsense for one referendum — on stilts or otherwise — here’s another helping; though hopefully one that will make you smile rather than snarl. The winners pocket £25 apiece and Bill Greenwell snaffles £30. When mithimade is allbijove Beneath a grayling moon Then hoey is the borigove And wethers are in spoon   When dunkum smit is gallowade Between the moggs and rees Ah join the giselous parade That bothams up the crease   How priti are the villiers Out whitting in the dales! How teehee utlier the furze And dahlia the mails!

In Competition No. 2951 you were invited to remove a letter from a well-known book title and submit an extract from the new work. This challenge, prompted by the hash tag #RemoveALetterSpoilABook that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter, saw you at your best. Among many highlights in a large and inventive entry were Robert Schechter’s A Cockwork Orange, which featured Donald Trump’s manhood, and a turn by Ted Hughes in Katie Mallett’s Far from the Madding Crow. Other star performers were Mike Morrison, John Samson, Peter Bear, Toni Hinckley, Frank Upton and J.M. Wilson. Sadly there was room for just the six winners printed below, who take £25 each. Hugh King nets £30.

In Competition No. 2950 you were invited to propose a new and ludicrous piece of legislation along with a justification for it. Although Basil Ransome-Davies makes it into the winning line-up, some might argue that his proposal is far from ludicrous, given that cats are taking over the internet. Another suggestion that struck me as eminently sensible included Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead’s call for a ban on the wearing of protuberant rucksacks in busy places. Chris O’Carroll’s neat meta entry, which demands a ban on ‘journals of news and opinion … sponsoring competitions that award prizes for light verse and frivolous comic prose’, made me smile, and I also commend D.A.

In Competition No. 2949 you were invited to submit a poem about sharing a drink with a famous writer. I suspected this might be a popular comp and so it proved. I was spoilt for choice winner-wise, so heartfelt commiserations to the many who came within a whisker of making the final cut, especially Alan Millard, Martin Parker, Roger Theobald, Chris O’Carroll and Siriol Troup. The entries that survived the painful and protracted cull are printed below and earn their authors £25 each. Bill Greenwell pockets £30.

In Competition No. 2948 you were invited to step into the skin of a species of your choice and provide an account of the experience. In his fascinating, funny book Being a Beast Charles Foster attempted ‘to learn what it is like to shuffle or swoop through a landscape that is mainly olfactory and auditory rather than visual’. As a badger he took up residence in a hole and ate earthworms (they taste of ‘slime and the land’). And as an urban fox he ‘lay in a backyard in Bow, foodless and drinkless, urinating and defecating where I was, waiting for the night and treating as hostile the humans living in terraced houses all round — which wasn’t hard’. It’s a mighty tall order to enter the cognitive and sensory world of a different species.

In Competition No. 2947 you were asked to submit a poem in praise of old age. Old age gets a bad rap. Only the other week, in these pages, Stewart Dakers questioned our obsession with chasing longevity given the decrepitude and indignities of that final furlong. Here was your chance to put the case for the defence. The competition certainly struck a chord, if the size of the postbag — from veterans and newbies alike — is anything to go by. It was a lively and cheering entry, infused with the spirit of the purple-wearing heroine of Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘Warning’ (‘When I am an old woman I shall wear purple…’) and a far cry from Larkin’s ‘Old Fools’.

In Competition No. 2946 you were invited to supply a verse obituary of a well-known person who has died in the past year. There’s certainly no shortage of candidates. Whether more famous people than usual are dying or whether it just seems that way I don’t know, but hardly a day goes by without one of the stars of light entertainment who provided the cultural backdrop to my formative years — Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood, Paul Daniels, Anne Kirkbride, Terry Wogan, Cilla Black, Keith Harris — checking into the horizontal Hilton. Alanna Blake and Max Ross were clever and touching on Ronnie Corbett; Chris O’Carroll, Martin Parker, D.A. Prince and Brian Murdoch also deserve honourable mentions.

In Competition No. 2945 you were invited to suggest remarks guaranteed to get rid of a guest who is outstaying his or her welcome. Leading the pack as surefire ways to get lingering guests reaching for their coats were birth videos, Estonian whisky, Stockhausen, didgeridoo recitals and Rolf Harris’s greatest hits. Also popular were suggestions along the lines of Basil Ransome-Davies’s ‘While you’re here, how about a spot of anal sex?’ and Tracy Davidson ‘Fancy a threesome?’, both of which struck me as somewhat risky. If all else fails, there’s always Graham Pirnie’s admirably uncompromising ‘Fuck off you boring old cow/git.’Those printed below are rewarded with £5 apiece.   Can anyone else smell gas?

In Competition No. 2944 you were invited to imagine what characters from Shakespeare’s plays would have made of this year’s fulsome celebrations of the 400th anniversary of his death and supply a verdict on behalf of one of them. How would the Bard himself have reacted to all the fuss, I wonder. In the expert opinion of Professor Gordon McMullan, director of the London Shakespeare Centre at King’s College London, he would have welcomed the publicity but been ‘baffled by the celebration of him as a person because at that time they didn’t have our obsession with biography or the idea that plays are a reflection of the life of a writer’. Here’s what you thought some of Shakespeare’s creations would have made of it all.

In Competition No. 2943 you were invited to submit a review of a well-known work of literature that has been written by a comically inappropriate reviewer. Honourable mentions go to Nicholas Stone and John O’Byrne, who let Donald Trump loose on The Odyssey and Brave New World. Jane Moth and Frank Upton also caught my eye. The winners take £25; the bonus fiver is Bill Greenwell’s.

In Competition No. 2942 you were invited to submit a rhyme incorporating the lines ‘What are little girls made of?’ and ‘What are little boys made of?’ This challenge was a potential minefield, given how high feelings run nowadays when it comes to the thorny issue of gender identity. Still, those brave souls that took the plunge produced a witty and well judged entry. I especially admired Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead’s nifty Tom Lehrer-inspired submission; Nicholas Stone, Martin Parker and George Simmers also shone. The winners earn £25, except W.J. Webster, who nabs £30.   What are little girls made of Is a question that’s better not put: Answer only if you’re not afraid of Finding your mouth full of foot.

In Competition No. 2941 you were invited to supply a short story entitled ‘Diary of a Superfluous Man’. Turgenev’s Tchulkaturin; Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin; Goncharov’s Oblomov: these ‘superfluous men’ are not simply literary types, says the critic David Patterson, but represent a ‘paradigm of a person who has lost a point, a place, a presence in life’. A few submissions contained clear references to 19th-century Russian literature’s hollow men, but there were many echoes elsewhere in the entry of the nihilism, cynicism and fatalism that characterises them. The winners earn £25; D.A. Prince pockets £30.

In Competition No. 2940 you were invited to supply Dr Seuss’s take on the US presidential race. Given his taste for taking down bullies, tyrants and hypocrites, it seems unlikely that Theodor Geisel would have been a fan of the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, who, as might be expected, loomed large in your submissions. It was a tall order to ape Seuss’s imaginative, subversive genius but you produced a lively and varied entry. Commendations to Mae Scanlan, Frank Upton, Brian Allgar and Alan Millard. Those printed below take £25; Chris O’Carroll pockets £30. McTrumpeter trumpets, ‘I’m born to be Prez! I say the things no other candidate sez! I’m richer than God! I’m a TV star, too!

In Competition No. 2939 you were invited to submit a poem about a famous person and an unlikely pet. There’s plenty of inspiration out there in the real world. A photograph from 1969 shows Salvador Dalí emerging from the subway, his rather dejected-looking pet anteater in tow. And then there is Gérard de Nerval, who considered the lobster to be an ideal companion: ‘They are peaceful, serious creatures … and they don’t gobble up your monadic privacy like dogs do.’ He used to take his for a walk round the Paris-Royal in Paris on a lead made of blue silk ribbon. You more than matched these -bonkers pairings.

In Competition No. 2938, to mark the tercentenary of Thomas Gray’s birth, you were invited to submit an ‘Elegy on a Country Churchyard’ written in the metre of his famous and enduringly popular poem. Every-one was a winner this week, but frustratingly we have room for only six. Those printed below take £25. The bonus fiver is Chris O’Carroll’s.   Time was these mossy stones drew reverent throngs As Sundays called the village to this place, But years have hushed our common prayers and songs. We thrive now on a different brand of grace.   Jazz concerts in this yard have we convened, And readings by the poets of the shire, About whose verses this much we have gleaned: Few know of them and fewer still admire.

In Competition No. 2937 you were invited to submit extracts from the diaries of the famous that their writers did not wish the world to see. Josh Ekroy impressed, lifting the lid on F.R. Leavis’s and C.P. Snow’s chummy trysts; Alan Millard wasn’t alone in outing God-botherer Richard Dawkins; and here’s a snippet from Sylvia Fairley’s Wordsworth: Walked around Ullswater in pensive mood, unable to find a suitable rhyme for ‘hills’. My dear sister, as ever, solved my predicament … the muse inspired her, and she has completed the poem already.   It was an enjoyable entry: hats off all round. The winners take £25. The bonus fiver belongs to Basil Ransome-Davies.   Sunday: another away draw yesterday.

In Competition No. 2936 you were invited to propose lyrics for a new British national anthem. Tom Shakespeare recently suggested that now might be a good time to ditch ‘God Save the Queen’ — ‘terrible tune, with banal lyrics’ — and replace it with something that more accurately reflects contemporary Britain. My favourite, in an entry whose tone varied wildly, was Bill Greenwell’s jaunty reimagining of ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’ by the late, great Ian Dury, which is refreshingly lacking in jaundice, sentimentality or jingoism. He takes £35. The rest earn £30.

In Competition No. 2935 you were invited to submit a Valentine’s triolet. A famous example of the triolet is Frances Cornford’s catty ‘To a Fat Lady seen from the Train’ (‘O fat white woman whom nobody loves/ Why do you walk through the field in gloves’), but it was that ace trioleteer Wendy Cope’s rather more charming ‘Valentine’ that prompted me to invite you to take on this medieval form. It was a varied, funny and accomplished entry: you rose admirably to the challenge of breathing life into your poems despite the formal straitjacket. The winners below take £15 each.   You weren’t the one I would have picked if it had been just down to me. My friend insisted, so I ticked.

In Competition No. 2934 you were invited to submit a poem suitable for inclusion in Now We are Rich. You weren’t obliged to write in the style of A.A. Milne, but most of you did. Long lines mean that there is space for only five winners this week; D.A. Prince, Warren Clements, Max Gutmann, Martin Parker and George Simmers were unlucky to be squeezed out. Those that made the cut are printed below and take £30 apiece. Bill Greenwell’s ‘Binker’-inspired entry earns him the extra fiver.   The Donald — as I call him — is a secret I can’t share The Donald is the reason why I have such golden hair Making market killings, stealing from the poor Whatever cut I’m taking, the Donald tells me, ‘More!