Lucy Vickery

A sonnet on it

issue 16 June 2018

In Competition No. 3052 you were invited to supply a sonnet inspired by a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature. There was a spot of preposition-related confusion this week — my fault entirely — and sonnets either ‘to’ or ‘on’ were acceptable.
 
Entries ranged far and wide, from Victoria Beckham’s pout via Gorbachev’s birthmark to the rise — and fall — of Anthony Weiner’s penis. But both John O’Byrne and Barrie Godwin used Sonnet 18 to hymn hairstyles — Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s respectively (Shall I compare thee to a bale of hay?/ Thou art more windblown and intemperate…’).
 
Honourable mentions go to Mike Morrison, Jonathan Pettman, Douglas G. Brown, Max Gutmann and Michael Jameson. The winners earn £20 each. W.J. Webster takes £25.
 




The sweet disorder of his flaxen mop
Seems artificial now, just done for show:
His telling feature’s not that cartoon prop
But something that lies hidden far below.
Though waywardly deployed when he was young
The trouble that it caused was brushed aside;
For then it seemed that with his silver tongue
All consequence could be, with charm, defied.






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