In Competition No. 2418 you were given certain rhyme-words in a certain order and invited to write a poem accordingly.
The rhymes came from Masefield’s ‘Where They Took Train’ which has a rather unexpected first line, ‘Gomorrah paid so for its holiday’. I hope the old Poet Laureate would be happy rather than horrified at the use his poem is being put to here.
The combination of ‘holiday’, ‘inn’ and ‘sin’ inevitably suggested to many of you the scenario of a dirty weekend, so that I found myself awarding brownie points to those competitors who showed originality, not suggestibility. Mae Scanlan, Brian Murdoch, W.J. Webster and G. McIlraith pleased, but the money (£30 to Michael Swan, £25 to the rest) goes to the palmary winners printed below.
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David Butterfield
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