Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Dylan Thomas changes his tune

‘Go gentle, boyo, into that good night…’. Credit: Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images 
issue 20 January 2024

In Competition No. 3332 you were invited to supply, in verse form, a retraction of beliefs previously believed in passionately.

You weren’t obliged to step into the shoes of a real poet but many chose to and some smart, entertaining about-turns included Robert Schechter’s ‘Palinode on a Grecian Urn’:

‘Truth is beauty,’
I said smugly,
but lived to find
that truth is ugly.


Other standout performers included Janine Beacham, George Simmers and Alex Steelsmith, and they were unlucky to miss out on a place in the winners’ enclosure.

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