Spectator competition winners: poems about the Oxford comma

In Competition No. 3271, you were invited to submit a poem about the Oxford comma.

Thérèse Coffey’s much-maligned edict about this divisive piece of punctuation seems a long time ago now, but your entries – tremendous; well done – brought it all back.

Though my head was turned by Frank McDonald’s villanelle, John O’Byrne’s haiku and Janine Beacham’s double dactyl, it’s the winners below who scoop £30.

A memo arrived in the Coffey break for departmental circulation: ‘Whatever else may be at stake, the priority’s good punctuation.   ‘The NHS will have to wait, I fear this task has proved more pressing, I’ll set aside affairs of state, the Oxford comma needs addressing.   ‘I plan to ban it – no regret, for since promotion I’ve a rod to rule with – mindful of the debt I owe my parents, Liz and God.’   And in the shadows someone hissed, ‘Beware of being too pedantic, an absent comma in a list can yield a faux pas that’s gigantic.’