Spectator competition winners: finding the poetry in science

The writer and chemist Primo Levi saw poetry in Mendeleev’s periodic table, describing it as ‘poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed!’ So I thought it might be an idea to challenge you to write a poem inspired by it. Your entries were generally witty and well-turned, with frequent nods to Tom Lehrer, whom I also had in mind when I set this assignment. Honourable mentions go to Frank McDonald’s smart acrostic, as well as to Martin Elster, Nicholas Stone and Christine Michael. The winners snaffle £25 each.

Chris O’Carroll Raise a toast to Dmitri, the great Mendeleev And the atoms he charted his famous array of, All the stuffs that all stuff’s the ornate interplay of On landscapes he helped us decipher the lay of.

Toast the pale pastel leisure-wear hues and the grey of This table (bulked up a bit since Mendeleev), Where groups abut periods stacked like parfait of The properties they illustrate a buffet of.

Toast element 1, hydrogen, that mainstay of The cosmos, then toast the split-second decay of The heaviest yet in the scheme Mendeleev Might not have imagined the long-lasting sway of.

In the patterns he choreographed his ballet of, Element 118 makes the latest display of The truth that today’s the enduring heyday of These columns and rows that recall Mendeleev.