In Competition No. 3304, you were invited to submit Shakespeare’s reflections on a pressing issue of your choice.
In BBC Radio Four’s Taking Issue With Shakespeare, which prompted this task, Michael Gove discusses levelling up with reference to King Lear, Will Self reflects on toxic masculinity in Hamlet, and Gordon Brown draws parallels between a rabble-rousing Marc Antony and Donald Trump.
Many of your entries addressed our robot overlords. Here’s David Shields:
AI or not AI: that is the question;
Whether it is safer in the end to limit
The capabilities of such artifice
Or to take arms against a sea of robots
And by opposing end them?…
Hon menshes to George Simmers and D.A. Prince. The winners earn £25 each.
To vape or not to vape, that is the question:
Whether ’tis prudent for the body’s sake
To shun raw sotweed and inhale unburnt
The essence of my Lady Nicotine
That fills the ambient air with strange perfumes
As if the tribes of Araby had gathered
In scented celebration of their choice,
Each to his own, thus all together making
A multifarious symphony of smells
That woos the nose as music doth the ear.
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