Competition: write a letter to Santa in the style of the poet of your choice

Spectator literary competition No. 2827 

It’s time for a seasonal challenge: let’s have a Christmas list, in verse, written in the style of the poet of your choice. Entries of up to 16 lines should be emailed to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 2 December.

The recent assignment in which competitors were asked to supply double clerihews about well-known sporting figures, past or present, was a popular one and drew a large and lively entry.

The clerihew form was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who composed his first in 1890, aged 16, as a pupil at St Paul’s. His son Nicolas came up with the double clerihew and trebles have been recorded. Other noted practitioners include Auden — and, of course, James Michie, who contributed many stellar examples to The Spectator.

Patrick Skene Catling summed the clerihew up neatly: ‘a distinguished name, ludicrous bathos and a snidely presented nugget of esoteric biographical information’. But the rules governing the form are not iron-clad, as I see it.