Competition | 25 April 2009

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.