Pundemic

In Competition No. 3063 you were invited to submit a poem about puns containing puns.
 
Dryden regarded paronomasia as ‘the lowest and most grovelling kind of wit’; Samuel Johnson took an equally dim view. But this most derided form of humour produced a witty and accomplished entry that elicited only the occasional groan.
 
Robert Schechter’s four-liner — ‘Opun and shut’ — caught my eye:

As the punster’s puns
were reaching a crescendo,
I said, ‘Take your puns
and stick them innuendo!’

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Gavin Mortimer

When will Britain wake up to the Islamist threat?

Also displaying considerable punache were Bill Greenwell, Basil Ransome-Davies, Sylvia Fairley, Michael Jameson and Joseph Houlihan. They narrowly lost out to the winners, printed below, who pocket £25 apiece. W.J. Webster snaffles the extra fiver.

‘No hurry,’ said the nurse, ‘more haste less peed.