In Competition No. 2529 you were invited to submit a poem describing what women are like. It was Wendy Cope’s funny and poignant poem ‘Bloody Men’ that prompted the comp. There was no obligation to mimic her style, though several did. A disturbing if familiar image emerged from some, though by no means all, of your entries of women as gossipy, ball-breaking, capricious shopaholics obsessed with the size of their bottoms — with increasingly good reason as the years pass.
Those who steered clear of cliché, or who leavened the unpalatable picture with an added twist of some kind, stood out. There were wise words from W.J. Webster, who railed against the ridiculousness of trying to define women in the first place: ‘All women are the same/ as men; it’s not their sex/ that makes, or mars, their name/ but something more complex ….’
Commendations to Noel Petty, Gerard Benson and Dominica Roberts. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each. The bonus fiver goes to Basil Ransome-Davies.
A woman’s like a hovercraft
Because she wears a skirt
And has projections fore and aft
And hovers to divert.
A woman’s like an octopoid
Or great Hindu goddess,
Her multitasking skills deployed
For home and happiness.
A woman’s like a violin
Which in a master’s hand
Emits grand music from within
Some mystic hidden gland.
Such myths are quite nefarious,
A lazy mental trap,
Since women are quite various
And poets full of crap.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Women are windows: judge between
This curtained and that open scene
And subdivide — this modest net
Against that all-obscuring set
Whose heavy velvet quite disguises
The room inside, springs no surprises,
While elsewhere veils of filmy white
Intriguingly seduce the sight.
A more rewarding view to pass
Would be a clear expanse of glass,
A secret sussed, a heart revealed —
But ah! what more may be concealed?
Gaze on, infatuated male;
The masking cloak, the subtle veil,
The show of candour — more than show
Only the window-cleaners know.
Mary Holtby
Women, like old-time wireless sets,
Are hopelessly erratic:
One minute, honey-soothing,
The next, satanic static.
Their rinky-dinky diodes
Only operate when hot;
No amount of tender tuning
Guarantees you’ll hit the spot.
You twiddle this, fiddle with that —
Result? A dismal hum
Before the shipping forecast
And late news from Hilversum.
They’re sensitive, directional,
Possessed of rare antennae —
Either you find their wavelength
Or wise up and get a trannie.
Mike Morrison
A woman is like Cherie Blair —
Out to lunch, beyond repair.
A woman is like Katie Price —
Sold and packaged by the slice.
A woman is like Germaine Greer —
Brains galore but quick to sneer.
A woman is like Princess Di —
Victim of a long goodbye.
A woman is like Britney Spears —
Sad and famous, prone to tears.
A woman is like Condi Rice —
Shaped from ebony and ice.
A woman is like Kanzler Merkel —
The tankie joined the magic circle.
The fact remains — but keep it dark —
Few women are like Joan of Arc.
G.M. Davis
Women? They’re like the multipurpose gadget
That in the advert offers just too much —
And so you can’t quite trust the pitch that adds it
All up. A laugh. You can’t accept that such
A flimsy, dinky little bit of plastic
Could outperform the serious heavyweights —
The sharpened steel specific tools for drastic
And urgent jobs, the ones men share with mates.
So when they simultaneously give you
A diary planner, home mechanics, love,
A social network, sex, a plot to live to,
Support when times are rough, a rubber glove
For clearing out the drains and life’s detritus
You can’t believe it. A Swiss Army knife
Is nothing next to her — and she’s as right as
All the small print — as lover, partner, wife.
D.A. Prince
Hear me, O men;
Let us give thanks for a good woman,
For is she not like unto the great fish
Whose name is called coelacanth?
For its wisdom is older than that of our mother Eve’s;
For it is deep and mysterious;
For it is rarer yet than a pearl of great price;
And seeketh the exotic waters of Ophir;
And is beautiful in the darkness
But pale in the light of dawn when its colours are gone.
And lo, is it not written by wise men
That the coelacanth hath legs
That it may evolve upon the land?
And verily a fish with legs needeth a bicycle,
Yea, even as a woman needeth a man.
Selah.
Brian Murdoch
Competition No 2532: Faits divers
In 1906 Félix Fénéon, master of distillation, published 1,220 news items in Le Matin under the title ‘Nouvelles en trois lignes’. You are invited to take a recent news item and compress it into 25 words (up to three entries per person). Entries to ‘Competition 2532’ by 14 February or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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