In the dog’s dinner that was Competition No. 2592 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Name’ in which each line either was an anagram of the name of a well-known poet or contained an anagram of the same. There are two winners in the first category; three in the second.
The first version elicited politely expressed howls of protest from some corners — one competitor likened it to the ‘intellectual equivalent of a full body wax’; mark II produced a collective sigh of relief, though some doughty souls, having already struggled through a week of anagram hell, felt compelled to stick with the original brief.
It was acceptable to use either surnames only or the full monty. General congratulations: it was a pig of an assignment. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. Bill Greenwell and Frank McDonald both get an extra fiver, and John Whitworth earns a nod of approval for his bonus acrostic.
A grinner begins, ‘Will …’ (Irwin Allen Ginsberg)
‘Will? Ma’s liking? Me?’ I say. (Kingsley William
Amis)
‘Oh hi, creep,’ I jeer. ‘No err, please — Bill.’
(Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc)
‘Olé, dull creamer, go!’ (I stay.) (Samuel Taylor
Coleridge)
‘Thrice-bald nerd!’ We rave. (David Herbert
Lawrence)
Damn raver! Well: (Andrew Marvell)
‘Grr! Seat-borer!’ ‘Knave!’ (Robert Ranke
Graves)
(Slang F-word thrown — oh, we yell …) (Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow)
Names gel. ‘Wind-dirt!’ ‘Scum!’ (Edward Estlin
Cummings)
I am ‘like a shrew’s plea.’ (William Shakespeare)
He’s ‘a darn lewd oaf’ — drum- (Alfred Edward
Housman)
bang — ‘inner-howl snarl-cur!’: see? (Algernon
Charles Swinburne)
Oil sarcasm: ‘Will?’ ‘Will?’ ‘I am?’ (William Carlos
Williams)
As a baby (oh, lactating mum!), no. (Thomas
Babington Macaulay)
I scent I’ll vent ‘Ay, damn!’ (Edna St Vincent
Millay)
Read it: B.G. It’s eternal. So. (Dante Gabriel
Rossetti)
Bill Greenwell
Harken, pal, my risen God (Gerard Manley
Hopkins)
One’s truest love is born; (Robert Louis
Stevenson)
We are all — but mistily — (William Butler Yeats)
Dew, life-worn. (Wilfred Owen)
Deist tears ignoble art, (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
Eagle pal, adorn. (Edgar Allan Poe)
I am vice. Will terrors be? (William Robert
Service)
Love grew in claim. (William Congreve)
Elated, warm, real, (Walter de la Mare)
Lo! We harp Lord’s NAME (Ralph Waldo
Emerson)
Frank McDonald
Lord, Rig us live chat, prayed Vergilius, then
After Dante had anted an ode and pressed ‘send’
Ah, Pops, IMs Sappho, I’m soooo not impressed,
Uh, moans Housman, discreetly, it’s far from your
best,
I’m afraid, twits Ruth Pitter, It’s rather tripe,
truth,
Arch-Hyena Turd! flames forth from Hayden
Carruth,
And, tweets Andre Breton, it is so barren-toned,
scumming, types Cummings (who’s probably
stoned),
Pure boor trek and drek, texts irate Rupert
Brooke,
Didn’t ogle! cried Coleridge, Not worth a look!
Rote stench cables Chesterton, full of dismay,
It’s a sham, arty go, skypes in sad Thomas Gray,
It was lavishly caned by a loud Vachel Lindsay,
Deemed insipidly hep by Sir Philip Sidney,
Sniffed James Merrill, obliquely, A smarmier jell,
Asked for help, Ogden Nash just gnashed, No, go
to Hell!
Frank Osen
He’s set his face against memoir, this man: (Simon
Armitage)
human, easy, see him hide all failures in (Seamus
Heaney)
his shabby heart. He’s dug the pit’s small span
(Ted Hughes)
where to err foully stays a private sin. (Roy Fuller)
His public face? — a fancy lord, fun, (Carol Ann
Duffy)
who wears his title so exactly he (T.S. Eliot)
appears almost demonic, silky in (Emily
Dickinson)
his vintage raw silk robes of vanity. (Gavin Ewart)
His haunts? — there’s beer there, grog, and always
wine; (George Herbert)
jazz throbbing, all warm-nerved, the beat (Andrew
Marvell)
listeners tap lavishly, making it a sign (Sylvia
Plath)
this is their deal, reward for long day’s heat.
(Edward Lear)
For him no let up — hard, but still he’ll grin (Ruth
Padel)
masking his lonely inner marooned twin. (Andrew
Motion)
D.A. Prince
Shelley, hell yes, what a rude boy!
Hopkins gets to screw posh kin.
Auden wants to stroke a nude boy
Keats takes sex-crazed lodgers in.
Enright likes one nighter sport.
Shadwell (welsh lad) buggers boylets.
Porter is of bad report.
Eliot (T.S.) lurks in toilets.
Arnold rogers Landor’s daughter.
Rochester thinks her corset hot.
Ewart’s name was writ in water.
Shakespeare’s name was not.
John Whitworth
No. 2595: Get Hitched
You are invited to submit a poem incorporating the titles of at least six Alfred Hitchcock films (16 lines). Entries to ‘Competition 2595’ by 7 May or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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