In Competition No. 3175 you were invited to submit a prequel to a well-known poem.
C. Paul Evans’s opening to a prequel to the nation’s favourite poem caught my eye:
My publishers had telephoned to askFor something inspirational and spiffy:I told them I would think about the task,But mentioned I was feeling somewhat iffy…
As did Bill Greenwell’s Stevie Smith:
Nobody saw him, the dry man, But there he lay frowning: Life was much much harder than he thought, Not-bathing but browning.
Other standout performers, in a stellar entry, were Jayne Osborn, Iain Morley, Chris Ray, Nick MacKinnon, Max Gutmann, Robin Helweg-Larsen, G.N. Crockford and M.F. Shardlow. The winners, led by Alex Steelsmith’s ‘This Be The Prequel’, net £25.
They bring you up, your mum and dad, To honour them, no matter what. You learn that you, not they, are bad, And ought to keep your cakehole shut. And
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