For the latest challenge competitors were asked to submit a recently discovered lost poem by a well-known poet that makes us see him or her in a new light. Step for-ward, Philip Larkin, flower arranger, Slough fan John Betjeman and knickers-on-fire Emily Dickinson.
Congratulations all round are in order this week, but I especially admired Alanna Blake’s palinodic villanelle from Dylan Thomas:
Calm down, relax, accept the dying light, It will be unaffected by your rage, For all our sakes, give up this futile fight…
And G.M. Davis’s Tennyson, who reveals what he really thought of her maj:What a prissy old Queen is Victoria! She looks like a case of dysphoria In the straitest of lace With that vinegar face, Though they say that in private she’s whorier.
High fives to runners-up Stanley Pearce, David Silverman, Tom Braithwaite and Paul Freeman. The winners snaffle £25.Derek Robinson/Keats My head aches; too much blushful Hippocrene Hath dulled my wits and set my senses reeling.
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