The latest challenge was to submit a Dear John letter, in prose or verse, in the style of a well-known author. My, you were good this week — good enough to make being jilted seem quite the thing. Even that most maddening of break-up clichés ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ has a certain charm when filtered (courtesy of Chris O’Carroll) through the whimsical lens of Ogden Nash.
Robert Schechter’s Andrew Marvell kept it brief:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime,
But since there’s not enough of either
I think we ought to take a breather.
Douglas G. Brown, Paul Freeman, Martin Parker, R.M Goddard and Bill Greenwell are also highly commended. The winners earn £25 each. D.A. Prince takes £30.
D.A. Prince/Kipling
If you could listen and not aim to wrangle —
Remember that to tango it takes two;
If you could see things, sometimes, from my angle,
A little more of me and less of you;
If you had sometimes been a little kinder,
If complimenting hadn’t been so hard
Or when my birthday fell (without reminder)
You’d turned up with both flowers and a card.
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