Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 2986 you were invited to submit a poem about a deadly foodstuff.   My inspiration for this assignment was the appalling news that toast can kill you, which is yet another depressing indication that everything good is bad for you. Or perhaps, as Max Gutmann suggests in the closing couplet of his winning entry, it’s safer simply to regard all food as a potential enemy.   Honourable mentions to Mae Scanlan and Jennifer Moore, and £25 each to the winners. D.A. Prince scoops the bonus fiver.   Amanita phalloides! Yes, my darling, just for you — hunter-gathered when your need is homely soup to add them to.   Fresh and creamy-clean, so wholesome; don’t they tempt your appetite!

In Competition No. 2985 you were invited to provide a poetic preview of the day Article 50 is triggered.   There were passionate voices from both sides of the Brexit divide, with many of you recruiting distinguished poets to your cause. D.A. Prince cleverly appropriated ‘Vitaï Lampada’, Sir Henry Newbolt’s tribute to English patriotism: ‘There’s a dread-filled rush in the House tonight/ With Article 50 poised to go,/ After lies black as pitch and the blind claiming sight/ And nothing to halt, now, the whole sorry show’; Jennifer Moore’s entry channelled the spirit of Dr Seuss: ‘The sun did not shine./ We were too sad to work,/So we cut out Farage/ And threw darts at his smirk.

In Competition No. 2984 you were invited to follow in the footsteps of Green Day and Moby and provide Donald Trump’s detractors with a protest song.   Where’s Woody Guthrie when you need him, you might ask. Well, as it turns out, the Dust Bowl Troubadour was well acquainted with the Trump family. Literary scholar Will Kaufman has discovered lyrics written by Guthrie excoriating his then landlord (‘Old Man Trump’) Fred Trump’s racist bigotry.   Billy Bragg has set the bar pretty high with his excellent reworking of that other folk icon Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ ’ but Alan Millard’s Dylan-esque entry was well done too and earns him the bonus fiver. The rest take £30.

In Competition No. 2983, an assignment inspired by W.W. Jacobs’s macabre mini masterpiece ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, you were invited to supply a chilling short story featuring an animal’s body part. Brian Allgar’s tale about Donald Trump, a stallion and a DIY organ transplant operation was an unlucky loser. The winners, printed below, £25 each. The extra fiver goes to Frank Upton.   ‘Sea View’. Yes, you could glimpse Morecambe Bay from the gate of the high, gruff, stone farmhouse. She would auction it, of course, with the owners disappeared. The key turned and, with a verdigris smudge on the shoulder of her coat, Alex was inside and engulfed by an insidious miasma of fungal spores. Her torch bleached a gigantic nodding polyp of dry rot.

In Competition No. 2982 you were invited to recast John Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’ in light of the news that the poet suffered from acute seasickness.   In his book Sea Fever, Sam Jefferson relates how as an apprentice seaman aboard the Gilcruix, the unfortunate Masefield was struck down by a brutal bout of mal de mer. A diary entry recorded the full horror: ‘I was faint, clammy, helpless, weakly wishing for death or dry land.’   Long lines, as per the original poem, mean that there is limited space for winners, which is a shame. This was a hugely popular comp and there were lots of skilful, witty and well-made entries (though with a fair, if not unsurprising, degree of repetition).

In Competition No. 2981 you were invited to submit a poem about a politician and an item of clothing.   Michael Foot’s donkey jacket; Harold Wilson’s Gannex mac; William Hague’s baseball cap; Hillary’s pantsuit: all featured in what was a cracking entry. I especially enjoyed Fiona Pitt-Kethley opening line on Theresa May’s leathers: ‘Her look’s more S&M than M&S…’ There were strong performances, too, from Jennifer Moore, Anne Woolfe, Albert Black, Tony Reardon, Dorothy Pope and Derek Greenwood.   The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each. The bonus fiver is Chris O’Carroll’s.   She’s a woman for all weather, Legs resplendent in fine leather.

In Competition No. 2980 you were invited to submit an extract from a politician’s speech ghostwritten by a well-known comedian.   At the 1990 Tory party conference in Bournemouth, Margaret Thatcher famously appropriated Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch to mock the Liberal Democrats’ new flying bird logo. But although Mrs T. gamely went along with her speechwriters’ suggestion to include the gag, it has since been revealed that a) she hadn’t actually heard of Monty Python and b) she didn’t entirely get the joke. ‘This Monty Python,’ she asked. ‘Are you sure he’s one of us?’   The most popular ghostwriter--comedian by a long way was Frankie Howerd (the lone Python voice in the entry was Graham Chapman’s).

In Competition No. 2979 you were invited to supply your contribution to a series of parodies of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories that have just been published which re--imagine the five as adults — or to give another children’s classic the same treatment. Everyone loves a spoof, it seems, to judge by the phenomenal success of the chart--topping Ladybird Books for Grown Ups. And never one to ignore the siren call of the literary bandwagon, I thought I’d invite you to have a go. On the whole, the standard was high. A.R. Duncan-Jones, Bill Greenwell, Toni Hinckley and Anne du Croz shone and deserve honourable mentions. The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £30 each, except Chris O’Carroll who pockets £35.

In Competition No. 2977 you were invited to submit a selection of meaningless, pseudo-profound statements. Bullshit was defined in a 2005 essay by the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt as being characterised by a lack of concern for the truth, as distinct from a deliberate intent to deceive (i.e. lying). Which makes this the ideal comp for the post-truth era. Or is it? Brian Murdoch wasn’t so sure: ‘Given the great pseudo-profundities of the past (“Credo quia impossibile” [Aquinas, T.], “Dasein hat sein zu sein” [Heidegger, M.], “Brexit means Brexit”,’ he writes, ‘what else is there to say?’ Quite a bit more, it seems. The invitation drew a large and accomplished entry.

In Competition No. 2977 you were invited to submit a Christmas carol with a topical twist. ‘In the bleak midwinter’ just about captures the general tenor of the entry, although George Simmers injected a lighter note with his invitation to ‘Deck Ed Balls with boughs of holly…’ and W.J. Webster, too, was looking on the relatively bright side: ‘God rest ye merry, gentlemen,/ Let nothing you dismay;/ The world is not on course to end/ That January day…’ Commendations go to Albert Black, Gordan Macintyre, Paul Carpenter, Tracy Davidson and Ian White.The winners, printed below, take £25 each. And the festive fiver is Martin Parker’s.

In Competition No. 2976 you were invited to submit an extract of a speech in which a well-known figure from history comments on a pressing item on today’s news agenda.   Rob Stuart gave Pythagorus’ view on the new Toblerone (not a fan); Frank Upton offered Thomas Crapper’s perspective on transgender public conveniences; and Michael McManus delivered St Paul’s Letter to the Climatians (‘let no rubbish escape recycling and resurrection). The winners take £25. The bonus fiver is Brian Allgar’s.   We, Henry, hereby do encourage thee To act against the dread LGBT. Unnatural! We’ve had a wife or two Who craved the nameless things that women do, Ofttimes requiring strange vibrating toys.