Replies from Shakespeare’s dark lady and Frances Cornford’s fat woman

In Competition No. 3196, you were invited to supply a reply to the poet from Frances Cornford’s fat woman or Shakespeare’s dark lady. Philip Roe and George Simmers both reminded me that G.K. Chesterton set the bar high with ‘The Fat White Woman Speaks’, his response to Cornford’s triolet (which was also parodied by A.E. Housman). The fat woman clearly moved competitors too (‘It’s always a welcome opportunity to have a go at one of the most unpleasant but mind-worm poems in the English language,’ writes Brian Murdoch; and here’s G.M. Southgate: ‘This poem haunted me… when I was young. It seemed to me so very sad, and cruel too.’) Replies to Cornford significantly outnumbered those to the Bard.

Among those who did give voice to the dark lady, Peter Butler-Way’s suitably bawdy response to Sonnet 151 and Nigel Stuart’s riposte to Sonnet 141 stood out. Others deserving an honourable mention in a large and accomplished postbag are Nick Syrett, C.