Lucy Vickery presents this week’s competition
In Competition No. 2680 you were invited to submit an acrostic poem of which the first letter of each line spells out the words Happy New Year.
This challenge elicited a whopping entry, and there were plenty of unfamiliar names among the regulars, which is always pleasing.
You were under no obligation to exude optimism and goodwill; indeed, with a few notable exceptions, those valiant souls that did attempt to inject a note of cheer failed to convince. Most didn’t bother to try, though, and Bernadette Evans’s closing couplet encapsulates the general gloomy tenor of the entry:
As politicians wonder if we’re happy,
Reality suggests the future’s crappy.
I liked George Simmers’s Hardy-inspired submission, while Mae Scanlan, G.W. Tapper, Max Ross, Lance Levens, Chris O’Carroll and Sam Gwynn were on equally fine form.
The winners, printed below, earn £25 each and W.J.
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