In Competition No. 2635 you were invited to incorporate the following homophones into a poem bemoaning the general decline in standards of literacy: ‘elicit’, ‘illicit’, ‘lesson’, lessen’, ‘Dane’, ‘deign’, ‘dissent’, ‘descent’.
From time to time, a challenge triggers rumblings of discontent in the competitive ranks, and to judge by the exasperated note accompanying one entry — ‘you can’t imagine how much I hate this comp’ — this was one of them.
Its prescriptive nature is not to everyone’s taste, admittedly (a maverick few chose simply to ignore the theme altogether); and I did regret having to disqualify some good entries because one of the specified homophones was missing. What’s more, though most competitors did manage to incorporate them all, the results were on the stilted side, which I think is down more to the restrictive brief than to any lack of skill or ingenuity on your part.
Commendations to Katie Mallett, Adrian Fry, Mike Morrison, and Roger Theobald, who were unlucky losers.
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