Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition
In Competition No. 2660 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of a bodily part that has been overlooked by poets.
You turned out in force to celebrate the unsung heroes of our anatomy. Sonnets to the spleen rubbed shoulders with paeans to the pancreas and odes to organs I’d never heard of. Some made me queasy, others — Mick Poole, especially — made me chortle; but everyone impressed, so congratulations all round.
The winners, printed below, earn £25 each and G.M. Davis pockets £30.
There are those whose gonads ripple at the
mention of a nipple,
While others prize the knuckle or the heel,
And although the thought may pain us there are
some who view the anus
As their cherished anatomical ideal.
There are rumours that the eyebrows lure a coterie
of highbrows,
That the spleen is more to Middle England’s taste
And that groupies of the humerus are both poorly
schooled and numerous ‹
But my interest resides below the waist.
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