Competition

In Competition No. 2795 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet.   We’ve done this before and the results were so impressive I thought we should give it another go. This time round I reluctantly disqualified some extremely funny, well-made poems because they didn’t quite meet the brief. Unlucky losers included Martin Parker, Mae Scanlan, Ray Kelley, John Whitworth and Robert Schechter, whose pithy Bardic about-turn raised a chuckle: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Nah’.   Chris O’Carroll takes the extra fiver. The rest earn £30. Again upon my couch I lay. My mood was vacant, even pensive. What blissful inward-eye display Awaited? I was apprehensive.

In Competition No. 2794 you were invited to give a helping hand to Sebastian Faulks, who will write the first-ever authorised Wodehouse sequel, and submit a scene from an imaginary sequel in which Wodeshousian characters of your choice debate the wisdom of such an enterprise. This was a mean assignment, given that Wodehouse imitators are doomed to failure. Faulks himself acknowledges that he has his work cut out — and by and large you agreed. Honourable mentions go to Francis Macleod, Mike Morrison and Pauline Love. The winners take £30 each. D.A. Prince bags £35. The Wooster brow crumpled like a punctured balloon. ‘I don’t like it, Jeeves. This fellow — Forks, is it? — unsettling the Drones.’ ‘Yes, sir.

In Competition No. 2793 you were invited to submit a short story featuring an animal written in the style of James Herbert. Herbert, much loved by teenage boys of a certain generation, died last month and the tributes came in thick and fast. Crime writer Ian Rankin spoke for many when he tweeted: ‘Sad news about James Herbert — as a teen, I scared myself silly reading him. He led me to King, Barker, others. RIP.’ Herbert’s first novel, The Rats, published in the mid-Seventies, sold 100,000 copies within the first fortnight. Its stars were flesh-eating mutant rodents the size of dogs. Your contributions to the genre featured vampire tortoises, homicidal magpies and vengeful badgers. On the whole, you captured the Grand Master of Horror well.

In Competition No. 2792 you were invited to submit a portrait, in verse, of one poet by another. Gerard Benson wondered if I’d had in mind Richard Greene’s description of Chaucer when I set the challenge. In fact, it was Mallarmé’s pen portrait of his friend Manet — ‘a virile innocence in beige overcoat, beard and thin blond hair, greying with wit’— that sparked the idea. There was a huge entry with winners enough to fill several pages. After lengthy deliberation, I narrowed it down to the five below, who earn £25 each. Chris O’Carroll, Charles Curran, Anne du Croz and G.M. Davis were unlucky losers. The bonus fiver goes to Basil Ransome-Davies.

In Competition No. 2791 you were invited to provide a poem in praise of a country other than the United Kingdom. Thanks to John Whitworth, who suggested the topic. It generated a wave of love-thy-neighbourliness, albeit with an undercurrent of mischief, that is a welcome antidote to the prevailing mood of xenophobia. I liked Ray Kelley’s hymn to Australia — ‘Oz, Oz, glorious Oz,/ Got-the-lot country if ever there was!’ — and was equally impressed by Nigel Mace, Rob Stuart and  Charles Curran. The winners, below, earn £25. Basil Ransome-Davies takes £30. Michael Myers Leslie Nielsen Gotta love ’em, haven’t you? Raymond Burr and Leonard Cohen David Cronenberg woo-hoo.

In Competition No. 2790 you were invited to take inspiration from Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language of 1755 and come up with some suitable Johnsonian definitions for modern times.   Thanks to Michael Williamson from Australia, who suggested that I invite competitors to put themselves in the Good Doctor’s shoes and imagine how he might have responded to our 21st-century world.   It is a tall order indeed to follow in the footsteps of such a towering figure. His elegant definitions, which often resemble mini exercises in moral instruction, are shot through with his defiantly un-PC prejudices, yet leavened with wit and utterly without sanctimony.

In Competition No. 2789 you were invited to supply the facts of life as explained by a well-known figure from history or the character from a well-known novel. Most of you chose characters from novels. Godfrey Ackers presented a gloriously pithy Mr Micawber: ‘Nightly coition five, rigidity positive — result happiness; Nightly coition nil, flaccidity perpetual — result misery.’ While at the other end of the spectrum John Whitworth finds Humbert Humbert on expansive form: ‘The facts of life, my chickabiddies! The birds, my own sweet birds of youth a-flutter, and the bees, my hot honey-bunches, bristling, whistling, rustling, hustling all abuzz!’ Commendations also to Steve Baldock and Peter Goulding.

In Competition No. 2788 you were invited to submit a poem about a relative. A popular one, this, and long lines mean there is space only to award the winners £25 each and the bonus fiver to Bill Greenwell. Commendations go to Dorothy Pope and Jayne Osborn.   Till seventeen, I didn’t know of Nell (two miles or nearer) — a great-aunt, who was seen aslant. A class thing. In that era, the nicest people were ignored because the rules were firmed. My mother said she’d not been wed when she’d seen Nell. I squirmed, and off we drove (my Dad asleep) to see her. Mum knew where. Nell, ninety, had just baked a cake. She didn’t turn a hair. She set aside the hymns she played, though twenty years had missed her: The protocols were fol-de-rols.

In Competition No. 2787 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by the ghost of Richard III reflecting on the discovery of his bones in a Leicester car park. The last Plantagenet king is, it seems, even further from the psychopath conjured up by Shakespeare’s pen than previously thought. Psychologists who have spent 18 months studying historical records from the period spanning the monarch’s life have come up with the rather unglamorous alternative diagnosis of ‘intolerance to uncertainty’ syndrome. The rollcall of unlucky losers is long: Caroline Gill, Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead, John Renwick, Neil McEwan and Godfrey Ackers narrowly missed the cut. Those printed below earn £25, except Alan Millard who takes £30.

In Competition No. 2786 you were invited to submit a feature for a travel supplement as it might have been written by a well-known novelist, living or dead.   Derek Morgan’s George Orwell is in Paris and insufficiently down-and-out: ‘Although I would have preferred to haul my suitcase on foot from Gare du Nord, a taxi whisked me to Place des Vosges and my nearby four-star hotel with its sickeningly servile staff.’ I also liked Johannes Kerkhoven’s Cannery Row-inspired take on the Argentinian city of Tilcara, and Adrian Fry’s evocation of a Spanish ghost town filtered through Ballard’s dystopian lens. It was a cracking entry. Congratulations all round. The winners take £25. The bonus fiver is Chris O’Carroll’s.

In Competition No. 2785 you were invited to submit poetic advice on how to woo a member of either sex. What better instructor can there be than Ovid, whose Ars amatoria gives guidance on the art of romantic conquest that knocks modern seduction manuals such as The Rules into a cocked hat. Two sections are addressed to men on how to get your girl and how to keep her, and one to women on how to hook your man. There are tips on personal hygiene (Don’t let those long hairs sprout/ In your nostrils. . .’) as well as on the bestowal of compliments and much else. You didn’t quite match the master’s lightness of touch, but it was a fine entry. The best earn £20; overall champ Chris O’Carroll takes £25. Behold him ready to be captivated.

In Competition No. 2783 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’. The title — shared by an unadmired, Phil Spector-produced album by Leonard Cohen and an as-yet-unproduced screenplay by the literary and erudite rocker Nick Cave — connects two of pop music’s masters of melancholy. Rock music didn’t feature in the entry but ladies lavatories loomed large. You also drew inspiration from history — Henry VIII, Lord Byron — and from the natural world. Sid Field, Lynn Haken, Juliet Walker, Alan Millard and John MacRitchie earn honourable mentions. The prizewinners, printed below, take £25 each except Frank McDonald, who has £30. He was born to be infatuated by the opposite sex.

In Competition No. 2782 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of fatness. Thanks to John Whitworth for this magnificent and timely topic. What better, at this self-flagellatory time of year, than a celebration of the consequences of festive excesses? My heart went out to Basil Ransome-Davies, who bemoans the metamorphosis of Sophie Dahl from plushly plump to fashionably slender: But farewell to the Rubens plumpness Sophie used to flaunt, For fashion’s sake now traded for the skeletally gaunt. And I enjoyed Charles Curran’s entry, which finishes with this rousing couplet: Three cheers for every man with XL trousers! We’ll never join the calorie-counting grousers! The prizewinners below take £25 each. D.

In Competition No. 2781 you were invited to devise a riposte to a nauseating Christmas round-robin letter that would deter the author from ever sending another. My favourite of Lynne Truss’s half-dozen responses to persistent round-robiners, broadcast on Radio 4, was take six: ‘I’ve decided, finally, to try a more direct approach. Here it comes. PLEASE STOP SENDING ME THESE NEWSLETTERS.’ But perhaps the whole exercise is ill judged. After all, these compendiums of boasts, bad jokes, inappropriate intimacies and inconsequential information contribute enormously to festive cheer, providing much merriment at their authors’ expense. We may mock, but how we would miss them. This week’s extra fiver goes to Adrian Fry. The rest take £25 apiece.

In Competition No. 2780 you were invited to write, in the spirit of Aesop or La Fontaine, a rhymed fable involving animals. Plato wrote in Phaedo that Socrates whiled away the hours in captivity turning some of Aesop’s Fables into verse. La Fontaine did the same, of course, though not from behind bars, some 2,000 years later. The challenge attracted a large entry. Some of you followed in the footsteps of Socrates and La Fontaine and translated the Phrygian fabulist’s content into poetry; others started from scratch and invented their own cautionary tales, often with a modern twist. Godfrey Ackers, Alanna Blake and Brian Allgar narrowly missed out on a spot in a hotly contested winning line-up. The prizewinners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each.

In Competition No. 2779 you were invited to submit Maud’s reply to Tennyson. It was Joyce Grenfell’s magnificently ball-breaking riposte to the invitation to ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ that inspired the challenge, and in general your responses referenced this section of the poem. You were on equally feisty form, having little truck with the narrator’s lurking in the bushes and talking to flowers. Honourable mentions go to unlucky losers Crispian Cartwright, Graham King, Douglas G. Brown, Frank Kershaw and Roger Theobald. The winners earn £25; W.J. Webster takes £30.   Alfred, dear, you are very sweet To wait at the gate all night, But I have danced quite off my feet, And dawn offers little delight.

In Competition No. 2778 you were invited to express your regret, in verse, for New Year’s resolutions not kept. The challenge produced an entertaining outpouring of contrition. I enjoyed John MacRitchie’s twist on the Frank Sinatra classic: ‘I’ve packed my case too full,/ Made dreadful curries, in a Thai way,/ Each year, my diets flop,/ Who cares what I weigh?’ Commendations, and commiserations, to unlucky losers Juliet Walker, Tim Raikes, Mae Scanlan, Douglas G. Brown, Jayne Osborn and G.W. Tapper. The winners, below, get £25 each. Top prize goes to Brian Allgar, who pockets the extra fiver. Happy New Year!  I swore I’d give up sex and saturnalia; That was my optimistic resolution.

In Competition No. 2777 you were invited to take inspiration from pupils at a Cambridge school who may escape punishment for minor offences if they can come up with a quick and clever excuse. Juliet Walker showed impressive ingenuity: ‘Yes, I did have my pet rat in my pocket, and I’m sorry if he frightened Miss, but she talks about “living history” and I’m just recreating the conditions in the trenches.’ As did Mark Ambrose: ‘The blankness on the paper is my answer to the existential problem posed by Sartre in the question.’ A skilful bending of the truth was called for here rather than outright outlandish lies. Could do better is the judge’s verdict on the overall standard, though there were some admirable exceptions.

In Competition No. 2776 you were invited to supply a poem reflecting on the Nativity written from the point of view of the donkey or the ox who (according to artists’ portrayals of the event, at least) bore witness to it. From the mid-1970s, the poet U.A. Fanthorpe wrote poems as Christmas greetings to her friends in which she reworked various aspects of the Christmas story. One of these, ‘What the Donkey Saw’, gives an ass’s-eye view on proceedings that fateful night in the poet’s typically wry and witty style. An enjoyable one to judge, this. The extra fiver goes to G.M. Davis. The rest take £25. Happy Christmas! We oxen are old hands, not prone to panics. Take one night last December.