In Competition No. 2574 you were invited to take a poem, or a fragment of a poem, and anagrammatise it to make a new poem. Some of you were unsure exactly what it was I was after. I was asking you to break down a poem, or part of it, into its constituent letters and rearrange those letters to make a new poem.
Judging by the unprecedentedly low turnout, and by some of your comments, this was a daunting assignment. ‘If only one had nothing else to do!’ wrote Mary Holtby; while Basil Ransome-Davies expressed the hope that the comp was as hard to adjudicate as it was to do. Well, I was prepared to share your pain, Basil, but was spared, thanks to a technologically able well-wisher, who came up with a computer program for checking anagrams.
I awarded points for accuracy, obviously. But those who managed to carve a decent poem out of such limiting material got bonus marks — especially when it related cleverly to the original. The first six printed below are anagrams; the last is not quite there, but is out by only a few letters. All scoop a well-deserved £20. The extra fiver goes to Celeste Francis by a whisker.
Why do I not love thee? Well, let’s dash off a
list:
I quite detest the styling of that hair
And, erghh, those untight trousers that thee
do wear.
Your snobbish attitude howls ‘Egotist!’
I’m daft entirely, relative to thee;
Inept at handling simple things alone.
Your awful, haughty, snide-ish, ruling tone
Implies thee have been evolved from some old
toff MP.
To gain from every scheme thee do contrive.
Thee envy all success which moves my way.
Thee feel no depth of hell when thee do drive
A vehicle to a free ‘Disabled’ bay.
I’d love it if thee ceased to be alive.
At the demise of thee I’ll holler ‘Hooray!’
Celeste Francis
(Sonnets from the Portuguese XLIII (‘How Do I Love Thee?’) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
In death Oscar Wilde’s the actor
And wooer, of Ireland bred,
Who handled iron Bosie and swanned.
Why hide how Fate then undid them
who loved the men who parade doom,
red hard men, rude in bed?
What? He tails golden market-men,
Ah! buying fairest boys.
Pariah he’s cast, a wicked con.
Death’s mended his playing stage;
Wilde works above a human note
with a lusty self today.
Frank McDonald
(First two stanzas of ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ by Oscar Wilde)
Wife or husband: both will drop,
Quiet, day or night —
Everything will rant, screw, stop,
End: you will feel its bite.
Then, aren’t we a mess,
Unmanned, torn? Wait:
Chum, try and undress.
We’re late.
Desires? Seen the clock?
Sssh: noises bang,
Bang true: that’s it: and tock! —
The fever warns: Go hang.
I hate to say it, son, but death
Will geld you in the end:
Hitched or not, it’s lack of breath
Will annul all sense, my friend.
Bill Greenwell
(A new version of ‘Aubade’ using the first verse of ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ by Philip Larkin)
Superb throned Athens! Divine
When weather-beaten walls shine,
With moon-hung heights
Hueing your nights!
Oh, Athens, wide is your white
Hewn, noon’s sweep, bright
Is the wind’s dry beat,
Born with dense heat.
Shirley Curran
(‘Who has seen the wind?’ by Christina Rossetti)
Sir, shall I kowtow?
Gad, no! You see,
My master has
High pedigree.
W.J. Webster
(‘I am his Highness Dog at Kew…’ by Alexander Pope)
Ye Child named father of ye Man?
Supposition I think wild!
I can’t, tho’ nimbly I scan,
See one sire himself when child.
Not what I was taught
(Women had late a leading role);
Yet ye baby Wordsworth’s sort
Be-meme (Hah!)
A booby soul.
I bawl Adieu. Pah!
Michael Brereton
(‘My heart leaps up when I behold/ A rainbow in the sky’ by William Wordsworth)
A dead ace earns defeat.
A wise ace bestows wit.
Tied lips shout ‘Be free!’
Eros shouts ‘Yes!’,
red-hot Eros.
My neat word-kit festers…
Ah trees, your swooning river sorrily ran
south,
decadent, effete, unholy, foul.
A watchtower lets hens forage here.
Frothy owls seethe.
Newts writhe.
A bee roars lightly.
The soft, fine bat’s wing speed’s adrift.
Basil Ransome-Davies
(‘Tattoo’ by Wallace Stevens)
No. 2577: Give me five
You are invited to supply definitions of five types of anything you choose. Walk? Kiss? Farewell? It’s up to you. Entries to ‘Competition 2577’ by 2 January or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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