In Competition No. 3068 you were invited to provide a sonnet in reverse, using as your model Rupert Brooke’s ‘Sonnet Reversed’, which turns upside-down both the form — it begins on the rhyming couplet — and the Petrarchan concept of idealised love, starting on a romantic high but ending in prosaic banality. This challenge
The seed of the latest assignment — to provide a tale of travel misery on behalf of a well-known voyager from the fields of fact or fiction — was a column in the Observer called My Crap Holiday, which invited readers to share their travel horrors: inclement weather, devil children, oven-like bedrooms, Arctic bedrooms, wardrobe-like
In Competition No. 3067 you were invited to provide a tale of travel misery on behalf of a well-known traveller from the fields of fact or fiction. The seed of this assignment was a column in the Observer called My Crap Holiday, which invited readers to share travel horrors: inclement weather, devil children, oven-like
The most recent challenge was to submit an ode to a piece of sporting equipment. There is a long and distinguished tradition of verse inspired by sport, going all the way back to Pindar’s odes celebrating ancient Greek athletic achievement. (As London mayor, Boris Johnson commissioned a poem in the style of Pindar to mark
In Competition No. 3066 you were invited to submit an ode to a piece of sporting equipment. There is a long and distinguished tradition of verse inspired by sport, going all the way back to Pindar’s odes celebrating ancient Greek athletic achievement. (As London mayor, Boris Johnson commissioned a poem in the style of Pindar
Your latest challenge was to supply a happy ending for a well-known play, poem or novel. Nahum Tate (the worst poet laureate ‘if he had not succeeded Shadwell’, according to Robert Southey) gave King Lear a cheery ending: Lear regains his throne, Cordelia marries Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declares that ‘truth and virtue shall at
In Competition No. 3065 you were invited to supply a happy ending for a well-known play, poem or novel. Nahum Tate (the worst poet laureate ‘if he had not succeeded Shadwell’, according to Robert Southey) gave King Lear a cheery ending: Lear regains his throne, Cordelia marries Edgar, and Edgar joyfully declares that ‘truth
The inspiration for the latest challenge, to submit a newspaper leading article exposing the corrupting influence of a seemingly innocuous everyday item, was the revelation, in a recent letter to the Times, that patent leather shoes were outlawed at a British girls’ public school as recently as the 1980s, lest they reflect undergarments and ‘excite
In Competition No. 3064 you were invited to supply a newspaper leading article exposing the hitherto unsuspected corrupting influence of a seemingly innocuous everyday item. This assignment was inspired by the revelation, in a recent letter to the Times, that patent leather shoes were outlawed at a British girls’ public school as recently as the
The latest challenge was to submit a poem about puns containing puns. Dryden regarded paronomasia as ‘the lowest and most grovelling kind of wit’; Samuel Johnson took an equally dim view. But this most derided form of humour produced a witty and accomplished entry that elicited only the occasional groan. Robert Schechter’s four-liner – ‘Opun
In Competition No. 3063 you were invited to submit a poem about puns containing puns. Dryden regarded paronomasia as ‘the lowest and most grovelling kind of wit’; Samuel Johnson took an equally dim view. But this most derided form of humour produced a witty and accomplished entry that elicited only the occasional groan.
The invitation to compose a Shakespearean-style soliloquy that a contemporary politician might have felt moved to deliver was inspired by Aryeh Cohen-Wade’s imagining, in the New Yorker, how Donald Trump might perform the bard’s soliloquies: ‘Listen – to be, not to be, this is a tough question, OK? Very tough…’ The Donald kept an uncharacteristically
In Competition No. 3062 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean-style soliloquy that a contemporary politician might have felt moved to deliver. Inspiration for this comp came from Aryeh Cohen-Wade’s imagining, in the New Yorker, of Donald Trump performing Shakespearean soliloquies: ‘Listen — to be, not to be, this is a tough question, OK?
For the latest competition you were invited to imagine a well-known author who doesn’t normally write in the genre trying their hand at science fiction. In a 2015 interview, the wonderful Ursula K. Le Guin, always a staunch and eloquent defender of the genre, took a pop at writers of literary fiction who move into
In Competition No. 3061 you were invited to imagine a well-known author who doesn’t normally write in the genre having a go at science fiction and submit an extract from the resulting work. In a 2015 interview, Ursula K. Le Guin, always a staunch and eloquent defender of the genre, took a pop at writers
The latest challenge was to compose an updated version of ‘Jerusalem’ starting with the words ‘And did those tweets…’ One of my favourite parodies of Blake’s poem is by Allan M. Laing. In it he describes the wartime blackouts: Bring me my torch of waning power! Bring me my phosphor button bright! Bring me my
In Competition No. 3060 you were invited to provide an updated version of ‘Jerusalem’ starting with the words ‘And did those tweets…’One of my favourite parodies of Blake’s poem is by Allan M. Laing. In it he describes the wartime blackouts: Bring me my torch of waning power! Bring me my phosphor button bright!
The writer and chemist Primo Levi saw poetry in Mendeleev’s periodic table, describing it as ‘poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed!’ So I thought it might be an idea to challenge you to write a poem inspired
In Competition No. 3059 you were invited to supply a poem inspired by the periodic table. The writer and chemist Primo Levi saw poetry in Mendeleev’s system for classifying the chemical elements, describing it as ‘poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of
The latest challenge, to supply snippets of mischievously/sadistically misleading advice for foreign tourists visiting Britain, or for British ones travelling abroad, is one that you always embrace with relish, though one competitor observed that it felt curiously difficult this time round because ‘the interaction between Britain and Abroad isn’t very funny just at the moment’.
