In Competition No. 2574 you were invited to take a poem, or a fragment of a poem, and anagrammatise it to make a new poem. Some of you were unsure exactly what it was I was after. I was asking you to break down a poem, or part of it, into its constituent letters and rearrange those letters to make a new poem.
Judging by the unprecedentedly low turnout, and by some of your comments, this was a daunting assignment. ‘If only one had nothing else to do!’ wrote Mary Holtby; while Basil Ransome-Davies expressed the hope that the comp was as hard to adjudicate as it was to do. Well, I was prepared to share your pain, Basil, but was spared, thanks to a technologically able well-wisher, who came up with a computer program for checking anagrams.
I awarded points for accuracy, obviously. But those who managed to carve a decent poem out of such limiting material got bonus marks — especially when it related cleverly to the original. The first six printed below are anagrams; the last is not quite there, but is out by only a few letters. All scoop a well-deserved £20. The extra fiver goes to Celeste Francis by a whisker.
Why do I not love thee? Well, let’s dash off a
list:
I quite detest the styling of that hair
And, erghh, those untight trousers that thee
do wear.
Your snobbish attitude howls ‘Egotist!’
I’m daft entirely, relative to thee;
Inept at handling simple things alone.
Your awful, haughty, snide-ish, ruling tone
Implies thee have been evolved from some old
toff MP.
To gain from every scheme thee do contrive.
Thee envy all success which moves my way.
Thee feel no depth of hell when thee do drive
A vehicle to a free ‘Disabled’ bay.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in