Competition

In Competition No. 3159 you were invited to supply a poem that does not contain the letter ‘e’. This fiendish challenge was a nod to Georges Perec’s ‘e’-less tour de force La Disparition (protagonist: A. Vowl), which was subsequently translated, also without the letter ‘e’, by the heroic Gilbert Adair. Perec, who once composed a

In Competition No. 3158 you were invited to supply an extract describing a well-known fictional detective who finds themselves catapulted into an unfamiliar milieu. This was a crowd-pleasing comp, attracting a large field of old hands and newcomers alike. But it turned out to be a tricky one too and terrific beginnings were often marred

In Competition No. 3157 you were invited to describe a visit to Glastonbury or Glyndebourne in the style of an author of your choice. Highlights in an especially hotly contested week — oh, for more space! — were Timothy Clegg’s John Masefield, R.M. Goddard’s John Cooper Clarke, John Mounsey’s Evelyn Waugh, Hugh King’s Edward Gibbon,

In Competition No. 3156 you were invited to supply a piece of verse or prose on the subject of schadenfreude, a challenge inspired by the late great Clive James’s glorious poem ‘The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered’, of which he said: ‘Not my most worthy moment, but somehow I had more fun writing

In Competition No. 3155 you were invited to supply a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’. This challenge was prompted by a tweet from picnic-hater @edcumming inviting people to nominate their single worst picnic item. Suggestions included stale warm dry carrot batons, hummus with a skin, supermarket Scotch eggs and gin in a tin that’s been slowly

In Competition No. 3154 you were invited to supply your own variations on the medieval round ‘Sumer is icumen in’. This six-part polyphony — the jaunty accompaniment to the ritual sacrifice of Edward Woodwood’s Christian copper in the horrific climax of The Wicker Man — is also known as the Summer Canon and dates from

In Competition No. 3153 you were invited to recruit a well-known children’s writer to explain Covid-19 to their young audience. Designer Jim Malloy’s reimagining of Dr Seuss titles for the coronavirus age — Oh, the Places You Won’t Go!; Docs in Smocks — gave me the idea for this challenge and though I had high

In Competition No. 3152 you were invited to supply a poem about the joys — or otherwise — of the staycation. A poem that transports me back to childhood bucket-and-spade holidays — ‘Half an annual pleasure, half a rite…’ — is ‘To the Sea’ by Philip Larkin (not a fan of holidays abroad). But while

In Competition No. 3151 you were invited to imagine famous authors reflecting on their struggles with DIY. Highlights in a terrific entry included John Osborne on grouting, A.E. Housman on the torture of cutting your own hair and several accounts of W.B. Yeats’s botched attempts at sorting out the plumbing (‘things fall apart’). I much

In Competition No. 3150 you were invited to submit a sonnet describing one of the labours of Hercules. This challenge seemed to strike a chord, attracting an entry of modest size but rich in wit and invention. There were some clever topical touches as well as echoes of master sonneteers from times past: Milton, Donne

In Competition No. 3149 you were invited to tweak an existing book or poem title for lockdown and provide an excerpt from the resulting work. This excellent challenge, suggested by a reader, produced a vast entry and some cracking titles, including Masefield’s ‘Cabin Fever’ and Jane Austen’s Compulsion, as well as several variations on ‘Come

In Competition No. 3148 you were asked to imagine what the result might have been had a well-known writer slipped a self-portrait into a scene from one of their works. The challenge was inspired by artists who insert a sneaky selfie into their paintings, a well-known example of which is Velazquez’s ‘Las Meninas’. But authors

In Competition No. 3147 you were invited to submit tips on social isolation in the style of a well-known writer. It was a terrific entry, in which famously retiring souls such Emily Dickinson loomed uncharacteristically large. I loved Nicholas Stone’s twist on Louis Macneice’s ‘Bagpipe Music’ (‘It’s no go the bog roll, it’s no go

In Competition No. 3146 you were invited to submit a poem about the goats of Llandudno, who recently ran amok through the Welsh seaside town. It’s not just the caprine brigade who have been broadening their horizons with humankind under lockdown. Racoons have invaded Arkansas State Library, wild boars are roaming the streets of Bergamo

In Competition No. 3145, to mark the 10,000th issue of The Spectator, you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, laconic and humorous in tone) on the magazine’s contributors. My predecessor Jaspistos was a popular subject. Clerihews should contain biographical truth and D.A. Prince assures me that the incident described in her

In Competition No. 3144 you were invited to submit a poem, six lines at most, containing all the letters of the alphabet. Some of the more technical challenges in the past have prompted howls of protest; under the circumstances, I decided not to make this one too taxing. Max Ross speaks, I am sure, for

In Competition No. 3143, a nod to García Márquez’s 1985 novel, you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘Love in the Time of Covid-19’ in the magical realist style. Magic realism has been contaminated somewhat by overuse and is in any case not to everyone’s taste. But if done well it can be

In Competition No. 3142 you were invited to supply a review on TripAdvisor that has been spiced up with a number of misprints. You saw this challenge for what it was: a brazen invitation to lower the tone. Take this snippet, for example, from Brian Murdoch: ‘The only problem we had was that I had