Flavour of the month

In Competition No. 3013 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of August.
 
There was a whiff of collusion about the entry this week, so many references were there to rubbish television, rubbish weather, fractious kiddies, tired gardens, traffic jams; as Katie Mallett puts it: ‘A turgid time of torpor and delay.’
 
But there were some sparkling, inventive turns. David Silverman was on pithy form:
 

Oh, thou cruellest month!
If August comes, then winter
Can’t be far behind.

Most popular

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Who is responsible for the BBC’s Gaza documentary debacle?

 
Honourable mentions also go to A.H. Harker’s well-turned nod to Eliot, to Paul Freeman and to W.J. Webster, a rare but eloquent fan of August. The winners take £30 and John Whitworth pockets £35.

August, August, it’s the tops.