Competition | 2 May 2009

In Competition No. 2593 you were invited to submit a Dear John letter in the style of a poet or author of your choice.

These days, dispatching a loved one generally involves texting ‘u r dumped’ or ‘i h8 u’ and pressing send. This comp was prompted by a longing for a return to the time when giving the heave-ho was a protracted business; when jilters sat hunched over a blank sheet of paper for hours on end, agonising over the right choice of words.

You were out in force this week, both veterans and newcomers. Verse outnumbered prose by a long way. Robert Burns and Elizabeth Barrett Browning featured strongly, while Joan Hunter Dunn was consigned to the scrapheap with great panache by Katie Mallett and G.M. Davis.

In a strong field, Brian Murdoch, Frank Osen, George Simmers, R.S. Gwynn, Mary Holtby and D.A. Prince stood out. The winners, printed below, get £25 each, except G. McIlraith, who pockets £30.

Dear marvellous, complaisant Mary,
I wish you’d been a wee bit chary
An’ sensed my love for you might vary
To weak from strong.
’Tis pity you were so unwary
An’ judged me wrong.

How willingly you gave to me
Your eager, sweet virginity,
Beneath yon shady hawthorn tree
By bonnie Doon.
I’ll no’ forget your ardent glee.
Well, not that soon.

I toast our love, my sonsie lass,
In one more dram.
There’s lads in plenty: first I’ll pass
You on to Tam.
G. McIlraith/Robert Burns

When I consider how I wrote each play
You ever claimed as yours, you worthless
    blighter,
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth I say
It is to love a thankless, third-rate writer.
Know this, my self-styled Bard, you sore abuse
The one you know is author of your work,
The one whose name you will not let me use.
You cheating, ingrate, balding, little berk!
No more I’ll grasp your withered, blunted quill
And shape love’s torrid lines upon your bed,
Nor strive to grind out other lines that will
Be claimed to be your copyright instead.