Spectator literary competition No. 2827
It’s time for a seasonal challenge: let’s have a Christmas list, in verse, written in the style of the poet of your choice. Entries of up to 16 lines should be emailed to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 2 December.
The recent assignment in which competitors were asked to supply double clerihews about well-known sporting figures, past or present, was a popular one and drew a large and lively entry.
The clerihew form was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who composed his first in 1890, aged 16, as a pupil at St Paul’s. His son Nicolas came up with the double clerihew and trebles have been recorded. Other noted practitioners include Auden — and, of course, James Michie, who contributed many stellar examples to The Spectator.
Patrick Skene Catling summed the clerihew up neatly: ‘a distinguished name, ludicrous bathos and a snidely presented nugget of esoteric biographical information’. But the rules governing the form are not iron-clad, as I see it. After all, Bentley himself bent them from time to time, as in this example:
The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.
The winners appear below and are rewarded with £15 per entry printed. Simon Machin, J. Seery, Adrian Fry and David Lambert were unlucky losers and deserve an honourable mention.
Duncan Goodhew
Would do
The breaststroke
Like a possessed bloke,
But had the good fortune to be hydrodynamically designed.
No doubt all alopecic swimmers find
Their hair’s nonexistence
Reduces water resistance.
Rob Stuart
Frank Bruno
Was British heavyweight boxing’s numero uno.
When he wasn’t on the receiving end of another pugilist’s
Fists
He chose
To appear on chat shows
And endorse
HP sauce.
Rob Stuart
Wayne Rooney
Could never be mistaken for George Clooney.
One is extremely hot,
The other not.
But to be fair,
While George is handsome, debonair
And good in romantic roles,
He scores few goals.
G.M. Davis
Cassius Clay
Became the noble Brutus of his day,
He could box with his talks and daze
With a witty phrase.
As Muhammad Ali
Who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee
He made the world hazier
For folk like Frazier.
Max Ross
Rod Laver
Was a player to savour,
An Australian hunk
With a left forearm thick as a boab trunk.
What made Rod’s name
Was his dazzling all-round game.
By comparison, Bjorn
Was a yawn.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Herbert Sutcliffe and Percy Holmes
Are honoured in Wisden’s tomes
For the day they won the toss
And made 555 without loss.
Herbert took his game
To international fame,
Showing the Aussies no mercy.
But no one remembers Percy.
Noel Petty
Jimmy Connors
Inflicted bounce-balls upon us
Not to mention the more-than-once
Grunts,
But he won Wimbledon in ’74 and ’82
An amazing gap, it’s true:
He was arrogant, brilliant, sulky, stormy.
What’s more, he was born the day before me.
Bill Greenwell
Stuart Broad
Doggedly ignored
The Aussies’ shout:
‘You’re OUT!’
Staunch stayput Stuart
Was caught first slip, and knew it.
But ‘Leave it to the ump,’
He said. ‘He’s no chump.’
Ray Kelley
Although Jessica Ennis
Might struggle at tennis,
Can she hurdle the net?
You bet!
So against Andy Murray
She’s no need to worry:
For the long, lanky Scot
Cannot.
David Silverman
C. B. Fry
Could score a try,
Hit a ton,
Skate, jump, run.
Sport has never
Ever
Known a sounder
All-rounder.
Philip Machin
Comments