Spectator competition: compose some wintry nonsense

Our competition this week invites you to submit nonsense verse on a wintry theme.

The line between sense and nonsense is a blurred one. In his Spectator review of Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber anthology of nonsense verse, Anthony Burgess encapsulated this nicely, noting that Mr Grigson ‘wisely evades, in his preface, anything like a definition of nonsense. He knows that we will only know what nonsense is when we know the nature of sense. Nonsense is something we think we can recognise, just as we think we can recognise poetry, but there has to be an overlap with what we think we can recognise as sense.’

A good way to get yourself in the right frame of mind for this challenge might be to remind yourself of the genius of Carroll or Lear.

Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 27 November.

Last week’s assignment asked competitors to supply a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by a well-known figure, living or dead, entitled ‘My Pet’.

Those of you who chose to step into the childhood shoes of well-known writers faced the tricky challenge of pulling off an element of pastiche while at the same time producing something that could plausibly have been written by an eight-year-old. Emily Dickinson, a famously precocious child, was a popular choice.

Gordon Gwilliams’s entry revealed the stirrings of educational-reformist zeal in the young Michael Gove, while Richard Hayes’s brought to life Russell Brand, budding Narcissus. I also liked Susan McLean’s already-jaundiced Boy Larkin.

The winners take £25 each. Max Ross scoops the extra fiver.

1. Max Ross/Robert Burns

O’ a’ the beasties in ma hoose
The one I love’s a bonnie moose.
I caught him stealing bits o’ bread.
Now I make sure that he’s well fed.
He used tae run when I cam near
But I would tell him: ‘Dinna fear’
And now I think he understands
He winna suffer frae ma hands.
I’m just a kiddie, so is he,
He’s wee and timid, just like me,
But I’m his brother and his mate,
We dinna ken what lies in wait.
Ma faither laughs whene’er I fret
If something happens tae my pet.
‘Ah, Rabbie, son,’ he’ll aye exclaim,
‘A moose will never bring ye fame’

2. Frank McDonald/Winston Churchill

I wish I was my bulldog. He’s good and gruff and grim.
He won’t be bossed or bullied.
I wish I was like him.
He’s been like that for ever,
Well, since he was a pup,
When he has something that he wants
He’ll never give it up.
He’d be a brilliant leader
And win a million fights
If I was like my bulldog
I’d put the world to rights.
I’d love to have his toughness,
A stern mouth and chin
And then I’d shout to all the world
‘We’re NEVER giving in!’

3. Frank Upton/Tolkien

My pet is a dog that my family calls Grip, but he is known as Hu by the fairies that live in our garden and Growrg by the wicked wolves. I don’t know his real name because he won’t tell me. My brother says there are no fairies or wolves in Birmingham but I have heard the fairies whispering and the wolves howling at night yet I am not frightened! That is when Grip goes out to fight the wolves and though Mama scolds him for being a bad dog and getting into fights I know he is a noble warrior. My dog has a coat of darkest sable and eyes like the Moon when she gazes through storm-wrack. I believe he is really a prince among dogs. There is much more I could say but I only have 150 words so I must stop.

 4. Roger Theobald/Ed Miliband

‘You should have pets!’ was Daddy’s cry,
‘And I will help you choose a name’.
The pet shop had a good supply
And my stik insect ‘Karl’ became.

Now David, after much deep thought,
Had set his heart on a piraner,
But when this idea came to nort,
He made do with an iguaner.

Karl settled in, happy and good;
He liked disguys — you couldn’t see
At any one time where he stood
(This seems a good idea to me).

But then one day Karl was no more,
By iguaner swalowed whole,
And David just said, ‘Nature’s raw’.
Revenge on D is now my goal.

5.  Mike Morrison/Emily Dickinson

Father inton’d — a Pet thou needst —
In Dread I quiver’d — Why —
The Options thus — a Pussy-Cat
Or Puppy — I pick’d Fly

Wrath bandag’d him — I trembl’d taut —
My Choice — deeply denied —
Mind knew its Mind — Musca alone
Would buzz me — satisfied

Fly seeks not close — Companionship
No Toys nor Exercise
Hopes Nothing — disregards the Life —
Aspires but Heav’nwise

Daughter – betake thee to thy Room —
In Joy I trod — to Bed —
Wish there fulfill’d — pale-Pillowcas’d —
One bright Bluebottle — dead

6. Chris O’Carroll/John Betjeman

If I had a mousie pet,
He might be eaten by a cat.
If a kitty were my pet,
An omnibus might squash him flat.

A fish would be a boring pet,
Just swimming round his bowl all day,
And a budgie, if the window’s
Left ajar, might fly away.

Even though some say a doggie
Is the perfect kind of pet,
I don’t think I’d like it if he
Licked my face and got me wet,

And I know I wouldn’t like it
If he messed the nursery floor.
So I believe the best pet is
My teddy, Archie Ormsby-Gore.