2021 in sonnets

In Competition No. 3232, you were invited to retell a news story from the past year in sonnet form. An excellent entry this week included submissions ranging far and wide, from Harry Patch and the Everly Brothers to Alaskan walruses and Jeff Bezos’s penis. Commendations to Josephine Boyle, C. Paul Evans, Dorothy Pope, R.M. Goddard, Douglas Hall and Martin Elster, and £20 each to those printed below.

For roofer Charlie Perry and his mates It was a time of Strongbow and cocaine, The chance to nullify decades of pain By getting early into altered states Then watching, with the pride that elevates, As English football claimed a cup again. In an uplifting, patriotic vein They crashed and bunged their way through Wembley’s gates. Anarchy in the UK? This was it — A zonked-out yahoo mob rampaging free, The unleashed Id, the tribe that lost its head. A bottom was exposed, a flare was lit. That, and a shootout loss to Italy, Became England’s epitome.