Lucy Vickery

Rhyme time

issue 24 November 2012

In Competition No. 2773 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘On First Looking into a Rhyming Dictionary’.

That class act Stanley J. Sharpless’s twist on Keats’ famous sonnet (which I found in E.O. Parrott’s How To Be Well-Versed in Poetry) was the inspiration for this assignment. Mr Sharpless begins: ‘How often have I searched for clever rhymes/ To ginger up some verse I’d scribbled down…’ And rounds off with this defiant couplet: ‘They tell me rhymes are out of fashion, now./ Who cares? I’ll go on rhyming, anyhow.’

Douglas G. Brown, David Silverman, Martin Parker and Ralph la Rosa shone in a large and varied entry but were narrowly outflanked by the winners below who take £25 apiece. G.M. Davis pockets the extra fiver.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in