In Competition No. 2812 you were invited to provide a poem celebrating bookshops.
Space is tight, which leaves room only for a congratulatory slap on the back all-round but especially to unlucky losers Max Ross, who submitted a clever acrostic, Gerard Benson, James Leslie-Melville, Lydia Shaxberd, Alison Zucker and Annette Field.
The prizewinners below earn £25 each. W.J. Webster takes the bonus fiver.
Let’s all now give a big and grateful hand
To firms whose livelihood is print, retail:
Each member of this much beleaguered band
Plays its own part in keeping books for sale.
Not always loved, the large emporial stores
(Where volumes are the measure of their trade),
Show how the house of books has many floors
And bears an aura that we can’t let fade.
The independent earns our heartfelt praise
For holding out against the online tide
And having books to handle and appraise,
While serving as an expert present guide.
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