William Congreve wrote, in the Epistle Dedicatory to his 1693 comedy The Double-Dealer, that it is the business of a comic poet to paint the vice and follies of humankind — so I thought I would give you the opportunity to do just that. The task I set in the most recent competition was to paint an amusing portrait, in verse of up to 16 lines, of humankind’s sins and stupidity.
Gail White’s entry expressed doubt that ‘the vices of our flesh and minds’ can ‘be contained in sixteen lines’. But John O’Byrne, keeping things short if not sweet, boiled it all down into a haiku: ‘My new credit card/ Means I can buy happiness./ Where did I go wrong?’.
Commiserations go to unlucky losers Ray Kelley and Mike Morrison, who were narrowly squeezed out by Sylvia Fairley and her fellow winners below.
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