Spectator competition: pogonophobe or pogonophile? (plus: lines on heaven and hell)

The beard has come a long way since the dark days of Mr Twit, Jimmy Hill and The Joy of Sex. As Ekow Eshun points out in his insightful essay ‘Welcome to Beardlandia’, the bewhiskered chin will one day come to stand as ‘the definitive visual shorthand for the early 21st century, as the moustache is for the Seventies and a pair of mutton chops for Regency England’. But now that the beard has gone mainstream, its days as a badge of cool must surely be numbered. Certainly, to judge from the response to the call for poems in praise or dispraise of facial fluff, not everyone is a fan. The pogonophiles and pogonophobes were split pretty much down the middle. It was tricky to narrow down what was a large and lively entry to just six. Commiserations to Alan Millard, Susan de Sola, Debora Garber and Jonathan Taylor, who stood out in a strong field.