Spectator competition winners: a life in sixteen lines

The latest challenge, to supply a short verse biography of a well-known figure from history, produced a commendable entry in which notables long gone — Diotisalvi, Vercingetorix the Gaul, Dr Dee — rubbed shoulders with those still very much with us — Anthony Weiner, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson. There were borrowings from Edward Lear and Lennon and McCartney (‘BoJo was a clown who thought he was a leader/ Made it to King Charles Street too…’) as well as echoes of Ogden Nash. An honourable mention goes to Brian Allgar for getting into the Halloween spirit with his life of Vlad the impaler. On equally eye-catching form were D.A. Prince, Sylvia Fairley, Bill Greenwell, Douglas G. Brown and W.J. Webster, who submitted a concrete poem. But the prizes go to the winners, printed below, a varied bunch who are rewarded with £25 each.

Chris O’Carroll How unpleasant to meet Mr Pound With his motley assortment of views — Some, about verse, not unsound, Others toxic, e.g., about Jews.

Both Image and Vortex were isms He championed as new and exciting. If Modernists had catechisms, It’s Ezra’s words they’d be reciting.

In his youth he looked Three Musketeerish, Though he swashed less and buckled more later. In the war he waxed Fascist and sneerish. His native land called him a traitor.

His Cantos is much praised but nearly Unread outside graduate school. His career demonstrates all too clearly That a genius can be a damn fool.

Ann Drysdale Old Adam was a gardener And walked upon his lawns But Lilith grew the eglantine And battled with the thorns.

Old Adam was a gardener And strode among his trees But Lilith trimmed the terminals And tended to the bees.

Old Adam was a gardener And played the king therein But Lilith made the compost heap And let the rot begin.

Old Adam was a gardener And slumbered in the sun But Lilith fed the apple tree By which he was undone.

Basil Ransome-Davies He was immune to discipline, As quarrelsome as Punch, At war with his immediate kin And strictly out to lunch. Through marriage to a teenage bride His loneliness was purged Too briefly. When Virginia died, His melancholia surged.

The Godfather of gothic crime, He never stood a chance, A writer born before his time First valued most in France.

You’ll know that he was truly great If ever you have read him, But Poe, a tragic reprobate, Bit every hand that fed him.

Alan Millard Not hardy, but a weakling born, Ay, weakling born, Who lived a life forlorn and torn To shreds by woes and strife: Two marriages and both a curse The first a pain, the second worse, Small wonder that, in doleful verse, He rued his troubled life.

Confessed as one ‘who no heart hath’, Ay, ‘no heart hath’, Who trod the cheerless Egdon path Beset by wind and rain, Such words were uttered not in jest, For now, long severed from his breast, His heart twixt both wives lies at rest Freed finally from pain.

David Silverman Holily, Galilee: Jesus of Nazareth: Daddy’s a Deity; Born in a shed. Parthenogenesis, Lucifer’s nemesis, Counterintuitive: Rose from the dead. Empirical miracles: Raising of Lazarus, Walking on water and Water to wine. Dishes of fishes and Dissing of riches Incontrovertible: Jeez was divine.

Max Gutmann Quirkily-workily Jorge Bergoglio, On a career path with Quite a steep slope,

Unostentatiously Worked as a janitor, Then as a bouncer, and Then as the Pope.

Last year Canongate published The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump by Rob Sears. You are invited to compose submissions of up to 16 lines for volume II. Please email (wherever possible) entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by 14 November. A maximum of four entries per competitor, please.