In Competition No. 2413 you were invited to supply a poem such as might have been written by the Revd Spooner.
William Archibald Spooner, the myopic, albino warden of New College, was not, as I had always imagined, a Victorian figure: his wardenship was 1903–24 and he died in 1930. As an educationist he would have been shocked if he had overheard his fellow Oxonian Wystan Auden referring dismissively to the poets ‘Sheets and Kelley’ and even more aghast had he lived to witness a feminist theatre group touring Britain in the 1970s under the name Cunning Stunts. My own favourite among his reputed blunders is ‘The Lord is a shoving leopard.’
This competition must have been hard work. I have consequently been lenient in interpreting the term Spoonerism. The winners, printed below, get £30, and Virginia Price Evans has the bonus fiver.
The louse that I hooked at was tartan and spired —
No sabre-laving devices were there;
It had rolls in the hoof and the lyres were unfit,
The dots were perty and there was no chuffing in the stair.
No eats were shared and no bowels were toiling,
The tarpit was catty and the fugs all raided;
The lubbards were keening and the selves were shagging,
The wino was lorn and the fades were all shaded.
The loafer was sacking all cadding and push-ons,
The tapes were drawn, there were groans in the state;
The cables were tracked and the wishes undoshed,
And a tawny scrabby licked plums off a crate.
The mayor was kissing among the steeple I paid with,
They couldn’t mould honey, they’d no nogs to their claim;
So I fought them some brood and gave them sure fillings —
I’m a tuttering stalker, Sev Pruner’s my name.
Virginia Price Evans
In my nosy wee cook we shall fight a liar,
When it’s cold outside and roaring with pain.
A
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