In Competition No. 2953 you were invited to supply a sonnet that has the name of a tree hidden in every line. This fiendish challenge, which was suggested by a reader, drew a large entry — and the following envoi from Alanna Blake: ‘Gor blimey, not the easiest of romps!/ But, Lucy, press on with
In Competition No. 2952 you were invited to submit nonsense verse of up to 16 lines on the subject of the EU referendum. So, as if you hadn’t had quite enough nonsense for one referendum — on stilts or otherwise — here’s another helping; though hopefully one that will make you smile rather than snarl.
In Competition No. 2951 you were invited to remove a letter from a well-known book title and submit an extract from the new work. This challenge, prompted by the hash tag #RemoveALetterSpoilABook that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter, saw you at your best. Among many highlights in a large and inventive entry were Robert
In Competition No. 2950 you were invited to propose a new and ludicrous piece of legislation along with a justification for it. Although Basil Ransome-Davies makes it into the winning line-up, some might argue that his proposal is far from ludicrous, given that cats are taking over the internet. Another suggestion that struck me as
In Competition No. 2949 you were invited to submit a poem about sharing a drink with a famous writer. I suspected this might be a popular comp and so it proved. I was spoilt for choice winner-wise, so heartfelt commiserations to the many who came within a whisker of making the final cut, especially Alan
In Competition No. 2948 you were invited to step into the skin of a species of your choice and provide an account of the experience. In his fascinating, funny book Being a Beast Charles Foster attempted ‘to learn what it is like to shuffle or swoop through a landscape that is mainly olfactory and auditory
In Competition No. 2947 you were asked to submit a poem in praise of old age. Old age gets a bad rap. Only the other week, in these pages, Stewart Dakers questioned our obsession with chasing longevity given the decrepitude and indignities of that final furlong. Here was your chance to put the case for
In Competition No. 2946 you were invited to supply a verse obituary of a well-known person who has died in the past year. There’s certainly no shortage of candidates. Whether more famous people than usual are dying or whether it just seems that way I don’t know, but hardly a day goes by without one
In Competition No. 2945 you were invited to suggest remarks guaranteed to get rid of a guest who is outstaying his or her welcome. Leading the pack as surefire ways to get lingering guests reaching for their coats were birth videos, Estonian whisky, Stockhausen, didgeridoo recitals and Rolf Harris’s greatest hits. Also popular were suggestions
In Competition No. 2944 you were invited to imagine what characters from Shakespeare’s plays would have made of this year’s fulsome celebrations of the 400th anniversary of his death and supply a verdict on behalf of one of them. How would the Bard himself have reacted to all the fuss, I wonder. In the expert
In Competition No. 2943 you were invited to submit a review of a well-known work of literature that has been written by a comically inappropriate reviewer. Honourable mentions go to Nicholas Stone and John O’Byrne, who let Donald Trump loose on The Odyssey and Brave New World. Jane Moth and Frank Upton also caught my
In Competition No. 2942 you were invited to submit a rhyme incorporating the lines ‘What are little girls made of?’ and ‘What are little boys made of?’ This challenge was a potential minefield, given how high feelings run nowadays when it comes to the thorny issue of gender identity. Still, those brave souls that took
In Competition No. 2941 you were invited to supply a short story entitled ‘Diary of a Superfluous Man’. Turgenev’s Tchulkaturin; Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin; Goncharov’s Oblomov: these ‘superfluous men’ are not simply literary types, says the critic David Patterson, but represent a ‘paradigm of a person who has lost a point, a place, a presence in
In Competition No. 2940 you were invited to supply Dr Seuss’s take on the US presidential race. Given his taste for taking down bullies, tyrants and hypocrites, it seems unlikely that Theodor Geisel would have been a fan of the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, who, as might be expected, loomed large in your submissions.
In Competition No. 2939 you were invited to submit a poem about a famous person and an unlikely pet. There’s plenty of inspiration out there in the real world. A photograph from 1969 shows Salvador Dalí emerging from the subway, his rather dejected-looking pet anteater in tow. And then there is Gérard de Nerval, who
In Competition No. 2938, to mark the tercentenary of Thomas Gray’s birth, you were invited to submit an ‘Elegy on a Country Churchyard’ written in the metre of his famous and enduringly popular poem. Every-one was a winner this week, but frustratingly we have room for only six. Those printed below take £25. The bonus
In Competition No. 2937 you were invited to submit extracts from the diaries of the famous that their writers did not wish the world to see. Josh Ekroy impressed, lifting the lid on F.R. Leavis’s and C.P. Snow’s chummy trysts; Alan Millard wasn’t alone in outing God-botherer Richard Dawkins; and here’s a snippet from Sylvia
In Competition No. 2936 you were invited to propose lyrics for a new British national anthem. Tom Shakespeare recently suggested that now might be a good time to ditch ‘God Save the Queen’ — ‘terrible tune, with banal lyrics’ — and replace it with something that more accurately reflects contemporary Britain. My favourite, in an
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
In Competition No. 2934 you were invited to submit a poem suitable for inclusion in Now We are Rich. You weren’t obliged to write in the style of A.A. Milne, but most of you did. Long lines mean that there is space for only five winners this week; D.A. Prince, Warren Clements, Max Gutmann, Martin