Trochaics

In Competition No. 2434 you were invited to write a poem in the metre of Hiawatha entitled ‘Breakfast’. Trochaics have rarely been more amusingly used than in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Hiawatha’s Photographing’, in which H. is exasperatedly trying to take portraits of a very tiresome and camera-conscious Victorian family. Mama is

Dressed in jewels and in satin
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a nosegay
Rather larger than a cabbage …

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Andrew Watts

Does Cornwall have a pasty problem?

See the New Oxford Book of Light Verse, edited by Kingsley Amis.

The large entry was swelled by half a dozen 10-year-old school pupils, who showed plenty of talent even though they all went metrically awry. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each and the bonus fiver goes to John Chilver.

Said the Monarch to her footman,
‘There’s a press mole in the Palace;
Take away the silver toast-rack
And the gilded Meissen china
And the crystal wine decantervAnd the lace-embroidered napkins
And the fluted Georgian teapot
Take them to our antechamber.
There we’ll have our royal breakfast.
Put instead some plastic boxes,
Cereals in plastic boxes,
Racing Post and small transistor,
So our Daily Mirror spy can
Tell our loyal British subjects
Of our frugal breakfast table:vSee how we outspin New Labour.’
John Chilver

Yes, I went — with some misgivings,
Went to Hiawatha’s wedding,
Saw the happy couple married,
Offered my congratulations;
Then there came the wedding breakfast:
Pemmican there was and sturgeon,
But champagne was sadly lacking,
Nothing there to toast the bride in.
Worse than this, we had to listen
To the best man, Chibiabos,
Singing songs ad infinitum,
Not a drop to break the boredom.
Then the comic turn, Iagoo,
Tells us tales about the bridegroom
Notable for lack of interest —
Thank your lucky stars you missed it.
Mary Holtby