Spectator competition winners: in dispraise of Valentine’s Day

The invitation to submit poems in dispraise of Valentine’s Day certainly struck a chord, drawing a large and heartfelt entry that captured the ghastliness well: overpriced dinners, sad, single-stemmed roses, chocolate genitalia, nasty cards – or no cards at all… Valentine’s Day is said by some to have its roots in the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia. But one scholar has proposed the theory that it was Chaucer who first designated 14 February as a day of love in his poem ‘The Parlement of Foules’, and I wondered if any of you would come up with a Chaucerian pastiche (you didn’t). A consolatory handshake to Fiona Pitt-Kethley, Susan McLean, Hamish Wilson, Robert Schechter and Mike Morrison, who were unlucky losers. The winners, printed below, pocket £25.

Frank Upton A curse upon thee, Valentine — Thou saint of woe and strife, Who gave me leisure to repine Of what I loved but was not mine — Who stole away my life.

I raise a wall of years, months, hours, As strong as prison stone, That shields me from your hearts and flowers Your lovers’ vows and perfumed bowers.