Competition | 16 January 2010

In Competition No. 2629 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet.

Haunted by the success of his much-reproduced quatrain ‘The Purple Cow’, Gelett Burgess wrote a palinode to strike fear in the hearts of anthology-compilers: ‘Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,/ I’m sorry now I wrote it!/ But I can tell you anyhow,/ I’ll kill you if you quote it!’

This week the equally oft-anthologised ‘Sea Fever’, ‘Dover Beach’, ‘If’ and ‘This Be the Verse’ produced some robust recantations in an entry of record-breaking size. Some didn’t quite meet the brief but impressed none the less; honourable mentions go to a sprinkling of unlucky losers: Julie Stoner, G. McIlraith, Noel Petty, S. Wilson, Roger Theobald and Geoffrey Riley.

The winners, printed below, net £20 each. The bonus fiver is Alan Millard’s.

Though I vow that once we met,
I now confess that I was lying,
Truth to tell, with much regret,
It wasn’t me that she was eyeing.
Say I’m evil, say I’m bad,
Say I thought she’d not resist me,
Say my lips were poised, but add,
Jenny missed me.

Most popular

Matthew Parris

What if Trump is just bonkers?

Other lads were there beside me
Everyone, but me, she kissed,
How could Jenny so deride me?
Leave me off her kissing list?
Say I’m soulful, say I’m sad,
Say my instincts should have warned me,
Say I gave my all, but add
Jenny scorned me.
Alan Millard (‘Rondeau’, Leigh Hunt)

A snobbish poet must confess
To having called this town a mess.
A poet’s words may cause distress.
I’m humbler now.

Because your features did not seem
To fit my fond, nostalgic dream
I showed you horrid disesteem.
Forgive me, Slough.

I much regret my flippant call
For so-called friendly bombs to fall.
I do not wish you ill at all,
And so repent.

Let me in justice celebrate
Accomplishments that make Slough great:
A large commercial estate
And David Brent.