Lucy Vickery

Valentine’s triolet

issue 20 February 2016

In Competition No. 2935 you were invited to submit a Valentine’s triolet. A famous example of the triolet is Frances Cornford’s catty ‘To a Fat Lady seen from the Train’ (‘O fat white woman whom nobody loves/ Why do you walk through the field in gloves’), but it was that ace trioleteer Wendy Cope’s rather more charming ‘Valentine’ that prompted me to invite you to take on this medieval form.

It was a varied, funny and accomplished entry: you rose admirably to the challenge of breathing life into your poems despite the formal straitjacket.

The winners below take £15 each.
 

You weren’t the one I would have picked
if it had been just down to me.

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