Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: poems about the goats of Llandudno

They’ll be coming down the mountain: goats roaming the semi-deserted streets of Llandudno. Credit: Christopher Furlong / Staff 
issue 02 May 2020

In Competition No. 3146 you were invited to submit a poem about the goats of Llandudno, who recently ran amok through the Welsh seaside town.

It’s not just the caprine brigade who have been broadening their horizons with humankind under lockdown. Racoons have invaded Arkansas State Library, wild boars are roaming the streets of Bergamo and lions lie sparko in the middle of the road in Kruger national park. Maybe, as Frank McDonald suggests in the closing couplet of his delightful, insightful sonnet, there is a message in all this:

Perhaps these goats have come that man might see A sign of how his world is going to be.

Nick Syrett’s Poe-inflected entry also foresaw a time when the beasts inherit the earth. He earns an honourable mention, as do Alan Millard, Chris O’Carroll, -Sylvia Fairley, R.M.

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