Spectator competition winners: Autumn poems

The seasonal challenge to submit a poem about autumn in the style of the poet of your choice was predictably popular and brought in a stellar entry: high fives all round. There were a couple of nifty twists on Philip Larkin; G.M. Southgate’s autumnal take on his poem ‘The Trees’, for example, which begins:

The trees are falling out of leaf Like something almost being lost They’re waiting for the autumn frost The summer has been all too brief

And here’s a taste of Basil Ransome-Davies’s clever reworking of ‘This Be the Verse:

They let you down, the leaves on trees That get the accolades in spring, But five months later, if you please, Are dead and stiff as anything.

And they were let down in their turn By autumn weather, dull and cold, That robbed their chance to live and learn. Deciduous, you don’t grow old.

Susan McLean, meanwhile, introduced a grimly topical twist into the proceedings with her take on Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven’ — set in early November:

Like a ghastly apparition on a grim and solemn mission, an unnerving politician pushed his way into the room, and I had the premonition that his access code to fission soon would cause our demolition.