Literary competition

The latest competition asked for an acrostic sonnet in which the first letters of each line spell AT THE SPECTATOR. You weren’t obliged to make the theme of your poem this magazine and its contributors but many of you did, to great effect. The tone was mainly affectionate, along the lines of Paul Carpenter’s opening: Across this social media driven land There stands a bastion of common sense, That often takes a fearless lonely stand Heroic, unafraid to give offence. But there were a few dissenting voices, Chris O’Carroll for one: Addison and Steele are not amused. Their lofty mix, ‘morality with wit’, These days finds its proud name sadly

The call for letters from a fictional character to his, hers or its creator complaining about their portrayal brought in a mammoth entry bristling with outrage. John Milton was bombarded with complaints by the thoroughly hacked-off cast of Paradise Lost. Wodehouse, too, got it in the neck from a parade of cheesed-off Bertie Woosters (Aunt Agatha wasn’t overly happy either). The Grinch gave both barrels to Dr Seuss (‘To be here in You-ville does NOT make me happy’). And Billy Bunter called out Frank Richards for fat-shaming. There were sparkling performances from Mae Scanlan, Roger Rengold, C.J. Gleed, Robert Schechter, J. Seery and Max Ross. The excellent entries printed below

The latest competition invited you to dream up an April Fool disguised as a serious news feature that contains a startling revelation about a well-known literary figure. The top-ranked April Fool of all time, according to the Museum of Hoaxes, was Panorama’s 1957 report on how Swiss farmers on the shores of Lake Lugano were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop thanks to the elimination of the dastardly spaghetti weevil and one of the mildest winter in living memory. Gullible viewers, convinced by a charming video showing peasants harvesting strands of pasta, flooded the Beeb with queries as to how they might grow their own spaghetti tree. It was a smallish

The latest competition — asking for a poem of 16 lines in which the lines begin with the letters of the alphabet from A to P — proved to be a real crowd-pleaser, attracting not only the regulars but many welcome new faces too. You were at your witty and inventive best, and I offer commiserations to a long list of unlucky losers: Sylvia Fairley, Paul Evans, A.K. Colam, Martin Eayrs, Nigel Stuart, Ralph Rochester and Brian Allgar. Class swot Bill Greenwell, who gave himself an additional challenge by ending each line of his poem with the letters K to Z, earns a gold star. The prizewinners, printed below, are

The invitation for poems making the case for a national commemoration day for a person or thing of your choice brought in a varied and entertaining entry. While Alanna Blake championed the dandelion, there were also impassioned calls for days that high-five Thomas Crapper, Doris Day and the tent. I, for one, would happily celebrate a Tom Waits day with Adrian Fry. The winners below take £25 each. Bill Greenwell pockets £30. Bill Greenwell Bring us the day of the dodo, The day of the passenger pigeon, That their memories never corrode, oh Let’s cheer them, and more than a smidgen: Let’s praise those whose very long luck Receded to

The latest challenge was to submit a poem about a deadly foodstuff. The inspiration for this assignment was the appalling news that toast can kill you, which is yet another depressing indication that everything good is bad for you. Or perhaps, as Max Gutmann suggests in the closing couplet of his winning entry, it’s safer simply to regard all food as a potential enemy. Honourable mentions to Mae Scanlan and Jennifer Moore, and £25 each to the winners. D.A. Prince scoops the bonus fiver. D.A. Prince Amanita phalloides! Yes, my darling, just for you — hunter-gathered when your need is homely soup to add them to. Fresh and creamy-clean, so

You were invited to follow in the footsteps of Green Day and Moby and provide Donald Trump’s detractors with a protest song. Where’s Woody Guthrie when you need him, you might ask. Well, as it turns out, the Dust Bowl Troubadour was well acquainted with the Trump family. In the early Fifties Guthrie was a tenant of the Donald’s father, Fred Trump, and the literary scholar Will Kaufman has discovered lyrics he wrote at that time excoriating ‘Old Man Trump’’s racist bigotry. Billy Bragg has set the bar pretty high with his excellent reworking of that other folk icon Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’ (‘The Times They Are

For the latest assignment, inspired by W.W. Jacobs’s macabre mini masterpiece ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, you were invited to supply a chilling short story featuring an animal’s body part. There were echoes of Jacobs in the entry: in Alan Millard’s malign machinery, for example, and Jennifer Moore’s be-careful-what-you-wish-for theme. Toni Hinckley, Roger Rengold and David Higham all stood out. And Brian Allgar’s tale about Donald Trump, a stallion and a DIY organ-transplant operation was an unlucky loser. The winners below earn £25 each. The extra fiver goes to Frank Upton. Frank Upton ‘Sea View’. Yes, you could glimpse Morecambe Bay from the gate of the high, gruff, stone farmhouse. She would

This year’s yuletide challenge was to supply a carol with a topical twist. ‘In the bleak midwinter’ just about captures the general tenor of the entry, although George Simmers injected a lighter note with his invitation to ‘Deck Ed Balls with boughs of holly…’ and W.J. Webster, too, was looking on the relatively bright side: ‘God rest ye merry, gentlemen,/ Let nothing you dismay;/ The world is not on course to end/ That January day…’ Commendations go to Albert Black, Gordan Macintyre, Paul Carpenter, Tracy Davidson and Ian White. The winners, printed below, take £25 each. And the festive fiver is Martin Parker’s. Merry Christmas, one and all — I

The latest competition, to submit an extract from a speech in which a well-known figure from history comments on a pressing item on today’s news agenda, saw you on blistering form. Rob Stuart gave Pythagorus’ view on the new Toblerone (not a fan); Frank Upton offered Thomas Crapper’s perspective on transgender public conveniences; Michael McManus delivered St Paul’s Letter to the Climatians (‘…let no rubbish escape recycling and resurrection); and Brian Miller imagined Winston Churchill on Ed Balls’s Strictly efforts (‘We will not say that Balls danced like a hero, but that heroes dance like Balls.’) The winners take £25. The bonus fiver is Brian Allgar’s. Brian Allgar/Henry VIII We,

Competitors were invited to supply their own nine-line twist on Robert Herrick’s ‘Upon Julia’s clothes’: Whenas in silks my Julia goes Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes and see That brave vibration each way free, O how that glittering taketh me! In a large and somewhat raucous entry, Herrick’s 17th-century restraint was cast aside in favour of full-on 21st-century vulgarity. Honourable mentions go to Basil Ransome-Davies, John Whitworth and Josh Ekroy. The winners, printed below, take £15 each. Jerome Betts Whenas in shorts my Julia plays A set or two on summer days I think of Herrick’s, who wore

This time around you were invited to supply resignation letters from God. Despite mankind’s attempts to kill Him off, God continues to bounce back. ‘The Almighty,’ as Terry Eagleton puts it in his book Culture and the Death of God, ‘has proved remarkably difficult to dispose of.’ But what if He decided one day that He’d had just about enough of us all (Gexit, as Ken Stevens termed it)? Now seems as likelier a time as any, so it’s over to you. The winners take £25 each. David Silverman Over the years, the human race has been taking part in a momentous democratic process. It is right that we trust