Spectator competition winners: toe-curling Valentine poems

In Competition No. 3286, you were invited to submit a toe-curling Valentine poem to Harry, or to the love object of your choice.

Meghan and her frightful poems were the inspiration for this assignment but perhaps we should cut her some slack; as Carol Ann Duffy has said, love poetry is the hardest to write. Mindful that some may be heartily sick of the Sussexes and their shenanigans, I widened the brief, and while most of you had Harry in your amorous sights, other love objects ranged from Sergei Lavrov to Nicola Sturgeon.

Honourable mentions, in a smallish and patchy entry, go to Richard Spencer, Robert Schechter, Susan Firth and Nicholas Lee. Also eye-catching were John O’Byrne’s tri-ple haiku to Alexa and David Shields’s Betjeman-inflected Valentine to Jacob Rees-Mogg. The winners, printed below, earn their authors £25 each.

The first time that I saw your face
It hit me like a big spotlight,
Or like the Pacific wowed Cortez
(No call to fat-shame him, alright?)

My love for you is fabulous,
More powerful than weed or coke,
As precious as an Oscar win.
I’m