In Competition 2817 you were asked to provide a poem, in the manner of Harry Graham’s Perverted Proverbs, questioning the wisdom of a popular proverb.
Graham was an immensely gifted lyricist and poet. In 1903, in the guise of one Col. D. Streamer, he published Perverted Proverbs: A Manual of Immorals for the Many, in which he brilliantly exposed the absurdity at the heart of those maddening nuggets of so-called wisdom that are trotted out when you least want to hear them. You weren’t obliged to follow Graham’s metre and rhyme, but those who did so earned extra points.
Nick Grace and Brian Allgar deserve an honourable mention. The winners, below, earn £25 each; Chris O’Carroll takes £30.
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