Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 3199, you were invited to supply a poem in which an inanimate object comments on its owner’s behaviour. Shoshana Zuboff’s recent book about the growth of surveillance capitalism gave me the idea for this competition. In it she warns of a future in which, to satisfy big tech’s insatiable appetite for data, the internet of things — our heating thermostat, vacuum cleaner, mattress — takes over our homes, robbing us of our ability to be invisible in those places where, Zuboff writes, we ‘first learn to be human… where our spirits spread and take root…’.

In Competition No. 3198, you were invited to supply an extract from a children’s book that is designed to explain economics to youngsters. The seed for this challenge was former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis’s Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism in which he uses the device of answering questions put by his young daughter to explain economics in a clear and engaging way. While his references ranged from The Matrix and Blade Runner to Sophocles and Frankenstein, you harnessed, among others, Dr Seuss, Lewis Carroll, Hilaire Belloc (who also wrote a primer on economics, Economics for Helen) and Eric Carle.

In Competition No. 3197, you were invited to supply a poem to mark the death of Prince Philip. I wondered if anyone, inspired by his touching lines on the death of his beloved Queen Victoria, might channel the poet and tragedian William McGonagall: Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled,To sing and rejoice with saints above,Where ah is joy, peace, and love. But you mostly steered clear of forelock-tugging, instead striking a tone closer to that of poet laureate Simon Armitage, whose poem ‘The Patriarchs — An Elegy’ expressly avoided the kowtowing the Duke of Edinburgh hated: ‘I didn’t want the poem to be part of a chorus of sycophancy.

In Competition No. 3196, you were invited to supply a reply to the poet from Frances Cornford’s fat woman or Shakespeare’s dark lady. Philip Roe and George Simmers both reminded me that G.K. Chesterton set the bar high with ‘The Fat White Woman Speaks’, his response to Cornford’s triolet (which was also parodied by A.E. Housman). The fat woman clearly moved competitors too (‘It’s always a welcome opportunity to have a go at one of the most unpleasant but mind-worm poems in the English language,’ writes Brian Murdoch; and here’s G.M. Southgate: ‘This poem haunted me… when I was young. It seemed to me so very sad, and cruel too.’) Replies to Cornford significantly outnumbered those to the Bard.

In Competition No. 3195, you were invited to submit an extract from the racier, mass-market version of a well-known literary novel. Speaking at Bath Literature festival in 2015, the author Fay Weldon suggested that writers should write two versions of their books, a high-minded one for print, and a more accessible page-turner for e-readers: ‘Writers have to write now for a world where readers are busy, on the move and have little time for contemplation and reflection…’ Those whose hectic lives and shot attention spans preclude hours devoted to ploughing through the meaty originals can enjoy instead your alternative versions.

In Competition No. 3194, inspired by Tony Harrison’s poem ‘A Kumquat for John Keats’, you were invited to write a poem of that title but substituting your choice of poet and a piece of fruit. It was a palmary entry, so I’ve made space for an extra winner.  Hats off, all round, and £20 each to those printed below. On Wenlock Edge you stand distraught, Your brow compressed, your features taut,And weep to contemplate the fate Of creatures in a fallen state.  To you the lover’s solemn vowIs frail as blossoms on the bough,While tunes that stir the patriot’s blood Leave young men perished in the mud.  Because your verses tip the scaleUnevenly to hopes that failOr ruined dreams, may I upliftYour sad heart with a special gift?

In Competition No. 3193 you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, humorous in tone) on members of the royal family, past or present. This one was a crowd-pleaser and drew a whopping entry. An inevitable element of repetition didn’t detract from the overall excellence, so congratulations, all round. I was sorry to hear that Noel Petty, a king among competitors, has died. His stellar contributions, spanning many decades, are summed up well by fellow competitor Frank McDonald in this winning entry from another clerihew competition: Noel PettyHad the grace of a gazelle on the Serengeti.Again and again he dominated competitionsWith brilliant submissions Pausing only to tip my hat to unlucky runners-up M.F.

In Competition No. 3192 you were invited to submit a short story that features an animal (or animals) taking revenge on humankind. The spur for this challenge was John Gray’s engaging and insightful book Feline Philosophy, which alerted me to Patricia Highsmith’s short story ‘Ming’s Biggest Prey’, about a Siamese cat who eliminates a human rival for his mistress’s affections. An inventive and lively entry included tales of vengeful snails, beavers and silverfish. Honourable mentions go to Moray McGowan, Timothy Clegg, Chris Ray, Nick Syrett and J. Harries. The winners are printed below and earn their authors £30. Bill Greenwell pockets a bonus fiver.

In Competition No. 3191 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy reflecting on the news that the Bard has been cancelled by some US academics. Teachers in the States have called into question the centrality of Shakespeare in the English curriculum given that his works are, according to Amanda MacGregor, writing in the School Library Journal, ‘full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir’. Some have seen this as yet another example of the tyranny of wokeness; others as a perfectly reasonable attempt to re-evaluate the role the Bard’s works should play in a 21st-century classroom. But what would the man himself have made of it all?

In Competition No. 3190 you were invited to submit the first paragraph of your least favourite type of novel. Sci-fi was the most well represented genre by a long way, with many thinking along similar lines. Here’s a flavour from Joe Houlihan: Not for the first time, Drod Vordant was struck by the ethereal beauty of the Butterfly Nebula. Even at 178.

In Competition No. 3189 you were invited to submit a poem about a favourite smell. This challenge certainly seemed to strike a chord — not surprising, perhaps, given the looming threat of Covid-induced anosmia. As Brian Murdoch puts it: Be ever grateful for your sense of smell!Treat no aroma with the least disdain,In case some virus makes you so unwellThat you can never smell a thing again… Other star turns, in an entry that was a delight to judge, were Adrian Fry (‘Most of all, I crave the pong/ of a layabed, copperhead girl gone wrong…’), Chris Ramsey’s Wordsworthian tribute to the smell of frying bacon and Paul Brown’s clever twist on Herrick. Commendations also go to David Silverman, Nick MacKinnon and Sarah Drury.

In Competition No. 3188, a challenge designed to make us all feel better about the looming prospect of another enforced staycation, you were invited to submit a postcard from a friend on holiday abroad that makes you relieved you aren’t there. Whenever I find myself dreaming of a trip to see the Northern Lights, I console myself with ‘Northern Dark’, Geoff Dyer’s hilarious account of the crushing disappointment of his pilgrimage to the Svalbard Archipelago (only on the return journey do the stars of the show, those ‘swirling geysers of psychedelic green’, make an appearance — but on the opposite side of the aircraft from which Dyer and his wife are sitting).

In Competition No. 3187 you were asked to provide a sea shanty on a topical theme. This challenge was an invitation to follow in the slipstream of Nathan Evans, the postal worker and TikTokker whose rendition of the 19th-century whaling song ‘The Wellerman’ went viral and gave rise to #ShantyTok. Among the multiple variations on ‘What shall we do with the unused Pfizer!’, Hugh King, Richard Spencer and Alanna Blake stood out, as did John Priestland’s homage to Handforth planning committee’s magisterial Jackie Weaver (‘There’s Councillor Brian disrupting the meeting,/ Way aye, kick him off Zoom!’) and Alan Millard’s to Captain Tom. The winners take £30 each.

In Competition No. 3186 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure, in which the word/s spelled out by the first letter of each line directly contradicts what the poem is saying. In an era of fake news, rampant conspiracy theories and ever-spiralling paranoia, acrostics are having a moment: resignation letters written to Donald Trump, into which the words ‘Resist’ and ‘Impeach’ had been smuggled, subsequently went viral. I enjoyed Adrian Fry’s double-edged hymn of praise to Adam Curtis (‘Pretentious tripe’).

In Competition No. 3185 you were invited to compose a sonnet called ‘England in 2021’. The challenge was inspired by Shelley’s political sonnet ‘England in 1819’, in which he paints a scathing picture of a broken country, rotten to the core, and rages against king (‘old, mad, blind, despised, and dying’), aristocracy, parliament, church and the army. Two hundred years on, the view is not much better but, as in Shelley’s closing couplet, there were some glimmers of hope. Honourable mentions go to Joe Crocker, Josephine Boyle, Nicholas Whitehead, Frank McDonald, David Shields and Nicholas Hodgson. The best of a varied and excellent bunch are printed below and earn their authors £20 apiece.

In Competition No. 3184 you were invited to tell a joke in verse form. This challenge, suggested by a reader and coming at a time when we could all do with a laugh, drew a large and jolly entry. As space is short, I pause only to salute stellar performances all around before handing over to the winners, who snaffle £25. The barman had seen many people walk into his bar,He’d met with folk of all persuasions, nations near and far.They’d ordered every type of drink, they’d ordered them with puns,he’d seen celebrities walk in, as well as ghosts and nuns.But never had he seen a pair stroll in just like these two;Helvetica and Times New Roman, print in letters true.They strolled up arm-in-arm and asked the barman for a drink.

In Competition No. 3183 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘My Year of Living [insert adverb of your choice here]’. Highlights in a varied and engaging entry included John Priestland’s ‘Year of Living Paradoxically’, which combined elements of Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel Paradox with the Grandfather Paradox (think Back to the Future), and Janine Beacham’s teleportation of Henry David Thoreau to the 21st century for a ‘Year of Living Deliberately’. The winners — led by Adrian Fry, whose nonsense-inspired story captures -especially well the discombobulation of living in a world where all bets are off — earn £25 each.

In Competition No. 3182 you were invited to rewrite a famous piece of light verse with a dirge-like, hieratic tone (as if we need any more doom and gloom). Robert Schechter put a downer on light verse supremo Ogden Nash’s pithy ‘Reflections on Ice-Breaking’, ‘Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker’: Time is a burden we mortals must carry,And in the great darkness our lives are a flicker,So heed me: though sweets may seduce, do not tarry.Life’s candle is shrinking, and liquor is quicker. The winners earn £25 each. Bill Greenwell pockets a bonus fiver. And so we recall, so saith the LORD, an ancient, Whom shall we praise, praise for his whiskers, For the whiskers proclaim his age, For they are grey in the way of righteousness, And Lo!

In Competition No. 3181 you were invited to submit a letter by a publisher rejecting a well-known literary classic. The authors of Lolita and The Bell Jar (‘an ill-conceived, poorly written novel’) are among distinguished recipients of multiple rejections. And T.S. Eliot famously turned down George Orwell’s Animal Farm (its shortcomings included the wrong type of pig). Orwell came in for a bit of a battering in the entry, too; Barry Baldwin wasn’t wasting any ink with his take-down: ‘DOUBLEPLUS-UNGOOD’. Many entrants (though not all) wrote from the point of view of a contemporary publisher, and works were often rejected on the grounds that their world-view, lacking in inclusivity of one kind or another, clashes with prevailing cultural orthodoxies.

In Competition No. 3180 you were invited to submit a Belloc-esque cautionary tale featuring a high-profile public figure. Cautionary Tales for Children, published in 1907 and ‘designed for the admonition of children between the ages of eight and fourteen years’, featured such cruel and hideous comeuppances as being eaten, feet upwards, by a lion and being burnt to a crisp. Yours were generally rather less grisly, but props to Chris Ramsey for his pay-off to the sad story of Dom, who ended up whacked like a mole: ‘The moral is: for all their dash,/ All Spads, like spuds, end up as mash.