In Competition No. 3095 you were invited to submit an elegy by a poet on another poet.
The prompt for this challenge was ‘Adonais’, Shelley’s celebrated 55-stanza tribute to Keats. Frank McDonald imagined Keats responding in kind:
My heart aches for you, brother Percy Bysshe,
Who wept for me although my name was writ
In water. Dearest friend, it was my wish
We two romantics might some autumn sit…
Robert Schechter, meanwhile, channelled Auden, who also wrote a famous elegy to a fellow poet. Here he is on Ogden Nash:
Earth, receive an honoured guest.
Ogden Nash is laid to rest.
Let the Yankee vessel sink
Emptied of its light-heartedly whimsical yet somehow undeniably indelible ink.
In a modestly sized but distinguished entry, David Shields earns an honourable mention.
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