Spectator competition winners: taking poetry in new directions

Tennyson’s lines ‘bright and fierce and fickle is the South,/And dark and true and tender is the North’ (from ‘The Princess: O Swallow’) prompted me to ask for poems about either the North or South or one comparing the two. Midlands man John Priestland felt that something was missing:

We know the North is at the top, The South is at the bottom, But isn’t there another part That Lucy has forgotten?

But that didn’t stop the rest of you producing a wide-ranging and exhilarating entry that took me from the bridge table to North Korea and beyond. Impressive contributions from Hamish Wilson, Samantha Skyrme and Ann Drydale were narrowly outflanked by the winners, below, which net their authors £25 each. Frank McDonald pockets £30.

Frank McDonald In the north there’s a fish with a serious wish To break out and be queen of the sea, And she tells all the others we’re sisters and       brothers Who ought to get wise and be free.