In Competition 2642 you were invited to submit a homage, in verse, to an educational institution. A century or so ago Balliol man Hilaire Belloc wrote with great affection: Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, Whatever I had she gave me again; And the best of Balliol loved and led me. God be with you,
In Competition 2641 you were invited to submit an adaptation by W.S. Gilbert of a scene or a soliloquy from Shakespeare. It is quite a challenge to match Gilbert’s wit and metrical mastery, but that did not put you off — this was an extremely popular competition. The entry was more than twice the usual
In Competition No. 2640 you were invited to provide the publicity blurb for one of the following implausibly titled but real books: I was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen; How to Write a How to Write Book, or Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter. These enticingly titled tomes have all, at one time or another,
In Competition No. 2639 you were invited to submit a dialogue, in verse or prose, between a well-known writer and one of his or her creations. The entry was vast and bursting with wit. Barry Baldwin’s dialogue, in which Godot quizzes his creator on, among other things, why he wasn’t allowed to appear at the
In Competition No. 2638 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of insomnia. It is undoubtedly a challenge to find redeeming features in unwanted wakefulness. But you are a resourceful bunch, and came as close as it is possible to come to convincing me that an inability to sleep has its consolations. Next
In Competition No. 2637 you were invited to take an existing word and alter it by a) adding a letter; b) changing a letter; and c) deleting a letter; and to supply definitions for all three new words. This challenge is a shameless rip-off of the legendary change-a-letter competition over at the Washington Post’s ‘Style
In Competition No. 2636 you were invited to submit either a victory song or a loser’s lament composed by one who regularly enters this competition. All in all it was a lively and entertaining entry. And while there were fond references aplenty to the good old days — ‘Bono sub regno Jaspistou I’d gain,/ The
In Competition No. 2635 you were invited to incorporate the following homophones into a poem bemoaning the general decline in standards of literacy: ‘elicit’, ‘illicit’, ‘lesson’, lessen’, ‘Dane’, ‘deign’, ‘dissent’, ‘descent’. From time to time, a challenge triggers rumblings of discontent in the competitive ranks, and to judge by the exasperated note accompanying one entry
In Competition No. 2634 you were invited to submit an obituary of a well-known figure, past or present, as they themselves might have written it. In a strong field, the entry was split fairly evenly between prose and poetry. Many poets have penned their own epitaph. Malcolm Lowry’s memorable six-liner begins thus: ‘Malcolm Lowry/ Late
In Competition No. 2633 you were invited to submit a poem lamenting the loss of a small but important object. As I dart around like a headless chicken attempting to track down the latest small but seemingly crucial missing item, the words of ‘One Art’, Elizabeth Bishop’s powerfully understated villanelle, ring in my ears: The
In Competition 2632 you were invited to supply the wording of the classified ad that is least likely to elicit a response. Thanks to John Papworth, who suggested this challenge, and to W.J. Webster, who drew my attention to the winning entry in a similar competition that appeared in another publication some decades ago: ‘Halitosis?
In Competition No. 2631 you were invited to submit a poem on a subject of your choice in which the last two words of each line rhyme. There was an element of ambiguity in the wording of this challenge, and a handful of you read it as meaning that the last two words of a
In Competition No. 2630 you were invited to imagine that a literary giant of the pre-television age is guest TV critic on The Spectator, and submit an extract from his or her review. As Emma Woodhouse says, ‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ So what would the literary greats
In Competition No. 2629 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet. Haunted by the success of his much-reproduced quatrain ‘The Purple Cow’, Gelett Burgess wrote a palinode to strike fear in the hearts of anthology-compilers: ‘Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,/
In Competition 2628 you were invited to submit a contemporary version of the 18th-century satirical song ‘The Vicar of Bray’. The model for the Vicar was purported to be Simon Aleyn, a 16th-century parish priest of Bray, who hung on to office by cheerfully reinventing himself to fit in with the prevailing orthodoxy. He found
In Competition 2627 you were invited to submit a rhyming prophecy for 2010. The entry was short on optimism but bursting with wit and ingenuity. Hats off to Mae Scanlan, a more-or-less lone Pollyanna in a sea of Cassandras, who foresees global peace and economic prosperity. She narrowly missed out on joining the winners, printed
In Competition No. 2626 you were invited to submit a thank-you letter for an especially hideous or inappropriate present, which manages to be diplomatic while fending off future offerings along the same lines. A respondent to a BBC poll on ungratefully received Christmas presents was given a ‘handsome but visibly used hair comb’ by an
In Competition 2625 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of any well-known person named John (a real person, living or dead, or a character from literature). The verse tributes poured in, to Johns I had heard of — Prescott, the Baptist, Donne — and those I had not: ‘John Harington, my jo,
In Competition 2624 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of the legendary William Topaz McGonagall on an issue of contemporary relevance to the Scots. Hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad poet in our language’, McGonagall built his reputation on appalling yet beguiling works of inadvertent comic genius.
In Competition 2623 you were invited to submit an extract from a novel or a play, of which one letter of the title had been changed, in the style of the original author. It was especially tough this week to whittle a large postbag down to just six. Oh, to have the space to share