In Competition No. 2580 you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘New Year Letter’, concluding with the words ‘under the familiar weight of winter, conscience and the state’. This couplet opens Auden’s long and oft-maligned verse epistle ‘New Year Letter’. Writing in the New Statesman in 1941, G.S. Fraser complained that he’d read the poem ‘five times with a mixture of astonishment, boredom, pleasure and increasing scepticism’ and had still been unable to fathom the author’s philosophical position.
A large and varied entry puzzled and occasionally bored but overall it made for a pleasing read. There were star turns from William Danes-Volkov, Andrew Mason, Shirley Curran and D.A. Prince, who followed Auden’s lead with a tale of New Year woe written in octosyllabic couplets. They were narrowly squeezed out by the winners, printed below, who are rewarded with £25 apiece. The bonus fiver goes to Adrian Fry.
Dolman takes poison pen and wantonly unrecyclable paper and, as every New Year’s Eve, writes his resignation.
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