Lucy Vickery

The full English

issue 11 May 2019

In Competition No. 3097 you were invited to submit a poem about Englishness in the style of a well-known poet.
 
The line-up was mostly predictable — from Chesterton, so-called ‘prophet of Brexit’, through Larkin, Betjeman, Brooke, Housman and, of course, Kipling. But it was an American, Ogden Nash, whose pen portrait of us prompted me to set this challenge:
 


Let us pause to consider the English
Who when they pause to consider themselves they get all reticently thrilled and tinglish,
Because every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz:
That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is…


 
The winners, in a field where the mood ranged from elegiac to caustic, earn £25.
 

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in