In Competition 2625 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of any well-known person named John (a real person, living or dead, or a character from literature).
The verse tributes poured in, to Johns I had heard of — Prescott, the Baptist, Donne — and those I had not: ‘John Harington, my jo, John,/ You’re a hero to my mind/ For inventing water closets,/ Great good for all mankind…’ (Josephine Boyle). R.S. Gwynn’s fine contribution was inspired by a multitude of Johns; from Braine and Wain to Lennon and Dryden. And snapping equally insistently at the heels of the winners were David Silverman, Janet Kenny, Sylvia Fairley, Mark Weeks and Susan McLean, with an uplifting celebration of John Thomas. It’s £25 each to those printed below and the bonus fiver is Basil Ransome-Davies’s.
Milton, Lennon, Keats, Knox, Brown,
Maynard Keynes or JFK?
Many Johns of great renown
(Though they might have feet of clay)
Must deserve a roundelay.
Still and all, my fickle choice
Lights upon John Wayne today.
He of the tobacco voice,
He who growled, ‘The hell you say’
Sure deserves a roundelay.
Always throwing a big chest,
Making bad men back away,
As the conscience of the West
‘Duke’ was more than a cliché
And inspires this roundelay.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Am I the only sucker who will miss his perfect
punch?
Here stood a tiny giant, with his grammar in a
tangle —
A bruiser from the cruisers who enjoyed a
decent lunch,
Before rolling out his tongue to run it through a
cranky mangle.
Pause for thought — without him, we would still
possess Clause Four:
He was loyal as he could be to his leaders —
what endurance!
Okay, he played at croquet, but that’s not
against the law.
He also looked like Churchill (that’s the dog
that flogs insurance).
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