Spectator Competition winners: John Donne on Tik Tok

In Competition No. 3343 you were invited to submit a sermon on a subject of contemporary relevance in the style of a well-known writer.

This challenge drew a medium-sized entry, mostly of great merit, pronouncing on subjects that ranged from the evils of mobile phones to deep fakes and potholes.

Frank McDonald’s Alexander Pope – ‘Now when to mischief small men bend their will/ They soon decide the past is full of ill…’ – and Janine Beacham’s Geoffrey Willans were unlucky losers, but Chris O’Carroll’s preacher-poet John Donne leads the prizewinners below, who take £25 each.

If a Tik or a Tok be washed away

The entire ecosystem

Of online intercourse would be the less

As well as if an Apple were.

Each social media outlet

Is a part of the main,

A piece of the synergy.

No online presence

Is an enterprise fully actualised

In detached insularity.

Any loss of outreach capacity

Diminishes me

For I am involved in

A cyberspace communion.

Send not to know for whom the Tik Toks

It Toks for thee.