Spectator competition winners: ‘Of January wary be!’ (plus: a presidential patter song)

In the brief for the latest challenge — to submit poems entitled ‘January’ — I mentioned William Carlos Williams, R.S. Thomas and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as all of them wrote poems with ‘January’ as their title. But that most maligned of months also lands a starring role in the opening stanza of George Barker’s charming ‘January Jumps About’: ‘January jumps about/ in the frying pan/ trying to heat/ his frozen feet/ like a Canadian…’ Freezing temperatures were very much on your minds, too, and for Jayne Osborn they are a cause for celebration: ‘Being constantly hot is tremendous fun – not!/ and although I have yet to reach ‘old’,/ it’s much more than a blush when you have a hot flush/ so I’m happy whenever it’s cold…’ Other strong performers, in a wide-ranging entry, were Nicholas Stone, Nick MacKinnon, Brian Murdoch, Nick Milne and Hamish Wilson. But they were pipped by the winners below who are rewarded with £25.