Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 2933 you were invited to submit a blurb for a misery memoir. Thanks to Tom Dulake for suggesting this excellent challenge. The winners would be worthy occupants of what some bookshops call the ‘Painful Lives’ section, which service the reading public’s appetite for ever more harrowing accounts of extreme suffering. Unsure whether to congratulate or commiserate with the miserabilists below, I award the bonus fiver to W.J.Webster; the rest take £25 each. Slow Drags the Harrow is Len Sprague’s fearless account of a life survived through sheer unyielding endurance. When he was seven his mother was convicted of poisoning his brutally sadistic father.

In Competition No. 2932 you were invited to submit up to 16 lines of verse that are the fruit of a collaboration between two poets. This week’s brief was open to interpretation. Some of you submitted centos (poems comprised of lines from existing poems); others imagined a pair of poets co-writing a new work incorporating the styles and/or themes of both and elements of existing poems. Some match-made poets with similar preoccupations; others saw the attraction in opposites. It was a clever and engaging entry and narrowing it down to just six was a protracted and painful process. The following would have been worthy winners had there only been more space: W.J. Webster, Katie Mallett, David Silverman, Alanna Blake, G.M. Southgate, Martin John, G.M.

In Competition No. 2931 you were invited to submit a psychiatric report on a well-known figure in literature. Shakespearean characters featured strongly in the entry, but it was children’s books that provided the most fertile hunting ground. Pretty much all of the inhabitants of Hundred Acre Wood — and of Wonderland — found themselves on the shrink’s couch, as did Mr Toad (bipolar); William Brown (ADHD; gender/body dysmorphia); and Rupert Bear (Asperger’s). Honourable mentions go to Amanda Nicholson, Julia Pickles, Alan Millard and Alanna Blake, but D.A. Prince is star performer this week and is rewarded with the bonus fiver. Her fellow winners earn £30.

In Competition No. 2930 you were invited to submit up to 16 lines of macaronic verse. A dictionary of poetic terms will tell you that macaronic is a verse form popularised by Teofilo Folengo, a Mantuan monk, which uses a mixture of languages, normally with a comic or satirical intent. I prefer E.O. Parrott’s elegant definition: ‘a school of poetry which originated in the polyglot eating houses of Trieste’. French was the most popular second language; Latin and German followed closely behind. Polish, Greek, Russian and Swahili also made fleeting appearances (hallelujah for Google Translate). It was a smallish field but there was much to admire. Frederick Robinson, Frank Upton, Jerome Betts, Frank -McDonald and Bill Greenwell all deserve a round of applause.

In Competition No. 2929 you were invited to submit an acrostic poem containing some predictions for the next decade, in which the first letters of the lines read NOSTRADAMUS. Although the forecast was bleak — no surprise there — a welcome smattering of more left-field prophecies made me sit up and take notice: Richard Dawkins finds God; A and Z amicably switch; Durham’s new bishop wins Miss UK; the Chilcot report is met with universal approval. Commiserations to near-winners Sam Gwynn, G.M. Southgate, Brian Allgar, Katie Mallett and Alan Millard. Those that just beat them to it are printed below and earn £15 each; the bonus fiver belongs to Bill Greenwell. Neuter genders are declared at birth; Oceans empty, seasides are extended;   Skinny’s out.

In Competition No. 2927 you were invited to submit a Christmas carol written in the style of a writer of your choice. Albert Black’s ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ by way of Will Self raised a seasonal smile: ‘Erstwhile in posh Dave’s municipality/ Upraised a plebeian bovid shack…’ As did George Simmers, who imagined Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Christmas Howl’: ‘Ommm … I have seen ecstatic visions of Noddy Holder, and of King Wenceslas riding naked upon a reindeer…’ The winners take £35 and Sylvia Fairley nabs the festive fiver. Merry Christmas, and thank you, veterans and newcomers alike, for all your inventive, witty and well-made entries. Keep ’em coming.

In Competition No. 2926 you were invited to submit a poem about HS2. The idea for this challenge came to me as I was listening on YouTube to W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Night Mail’, which he wrote to accompany a section of the terrific 1936 documentary about the London to Glasgow Postal Special directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt (who described Auden as looking like a ‘half-witted Swedish deckhand’). Not altogether surprisingly, the tone of the entry was less celebratory than Auden’s, with the notable exception of Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead’s prize-winning submission, written in MacGonagallese. Her fellow victors are rewarded with £30 apiece and George Simmers snaffles the extra fiver.

In Competition No. 2925 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The Winter’s Tale’. There were lots of references to Shakespeare’s play in the entry and to judge by its somewhat sombre mood most of you agree with Mamillius’ assertion that ‘A sad tale’s best for winter…’. Those printed below earn their authors £25. Frank McDonald takes the bonus fiver. Herding sheep is boring, so when a party of rich folk pass it is big news. Jude, the world’s best joker, cheekily enquired where they were headed and was given a courteous and surprising reply. They had presents for the new prince and wanted directions to the palace.

In Competition No. 2924 you were invited to submit a ‘love scene’ from a novel that dampens rather than boosts the reader’s libido. It was a cracking entry, so I’ll keep it brief to make space for as many winners as possible. Dishonourable mentions go to Peter Goulding, Sergio Michael Petro, Margaret Timbrell and Ann Drysdale. The winners take £25 each. George Simmers nabs the bonus fiver. Their gazes met longingly above their mugs of Freetrade herbal tea. Shyly, he offered a proforma document affirming consent to sexual intercourse. She signed it with an eager flourish. Quickly, they both undressed, taking care not to make any remarks that might be taken as objectifying the other’s body. They embraced.

In Competition No. 2923 you were invited to describe an everyday object, in verse, from the point of view of a Martian. James Fenton coined the term Martian to describe the work of poets such as Craig Raine and Christopher Reid, whose poems cast familiar objects in an unfamiliar light. In his 1979 poem ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’ Raine describes books, or ‘caxtons’ as he calls them, as ‘mechanical birds with many wings/ and some are treasured for their markings —/ they cause the eyes to melt/ or the body to shriek without pain...’ This was a challenging comp. Children are well suited to writing Martian but it’s trickier for adults with their more fully formed view of the world.