In Competition No. 2669 you were invited to take one of Shakespeare’s soliloquies and recast it in the style of the author of your choice. This was an exceptionally strong field, with winners enough to fill several columns. Honourable mentions to G.M. Davis, Mary Holtby, Laura Garratt and Margaret Howell, and £30 each to those printed below. Catherine Tufariello bags the extra fiver.
Miss Juliet Capulet, you are the sun,
With that sheen on your skin and your braids half
undone!
I’m a fool on a cliff, and you give me a shove—
Is it any surprise that I’ve fallen in love?
Your daddy looked daggers all night at the dance,
While I hoped and I prayed for tiniest glance
At your firm-muscled forearms and strenuous
thighs.
Now you stand at the window, the sun in your eyes:
Though it’s quarter past midnight, you’d think it
was noon,
And the greeny-faced, chilly-chaste, envious moon
Looks queasy as I am, your servant in livery
Dumbstruck and weak-kneed and lovery-shivery.
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