Competition: Against the grain

In Competition No. 2717 you were invited to supply a poem expressing distaste for something or someone widely considered to be beautiful.

You poured scorn on Paris, daffodils, Michelangelo and Alan Bennett’s plays. Newborns were also a popular target. Here is Melissa Balmain giving it both barrels: ‘You can dress it in taffeta, ribbon and lace;/ you can scrub it each hour of the day;/ you can name it Belinda Veronica Grace;/ it’ll still look like rump roast manqué’. Martin Parker took an entertaining swipe at ‘Les Grandes Baigneuses’ — ‘They may in youth have all been ravers; Cézanne, though, did their looks no favours’ — but the most heartfelt chorus of disapproval was reserved for the ‘Mona Lisa’, which gets Bill Greenwell’s goat and earns him the bonus fiver. His fellow winners nab £25; Roger Theobald, J.C.H. Mounsey and Philip Roe were unlucky losers.

I loathe the Mona Lisa
With her lips that seem to lurk
Together like a clam’s: a sham
That most would call a smirk.