In Competition No. 2539 you were invited to submit a problem in verse form to The Spectator’s agony aunt in the style of a poet of your choice.
The assignment was inspired by James Michie’s poem ‘Dear Mary’, which appears in his superb posthumously published collection Last Poems and which brims with wit and humanity, as did the man himself.
Honourable mentions to Mae Scanlan, Ray Kelley and G.M. Davis for enjoyable Ogden Nash pastiche; to Mrs E. Emerk for an entertaining reworking of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’; and to Philip Wilkinson for his take on Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ written from the point of view of the mistress herself. I also liked Mike Morrison’s plea, Emily Dickinson-style: ‘This hapless Hyphenation –/ Must be Badness – in the Blood –/ Without your Wisdom – Mary –/ I am but lost – for Good.’ The winners, printed below, get £25 apiece.
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