The Spectator

Macspaunday time

In Competition No. 2440 you were invited to offer a poem which is a pastiche of one or all of the young left-wing poets of the early 1930s

issue 29 April 2006

In Competition No. 2440 you were invited to offer a poem which is a pastiche of one or all of the young left-wing poets of the early 1930s, MacNeice, Spender, Auden and Day Lewis. William Empson’s ‘Just a Smack at Auden’ is an affectionate send-up worth looking for. I have room only for one verse:
What was said by Marx, boys, what did he perpend?
No good being sparks, boys, waiting for the end.
Treason


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