The latest challenge asked competitors to supply an imaginary testimonial for a high-profile figure that is superficially positive but contains hidden warnings to a potential employer. This was an exercise in the artful deployment of ambiguity, as displayed in Robert J. Thornton’s L.I.A.R. The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations, a handbook for those who, whether
In Competition No. 3047 you were invited to supply an imaginary testimonial for a high-profile figure that is superficially positive but contains hidden warnings to a potential employer. This was an exercise in the artful deployment of ambiguity, as displayed in Robert J. Thornton’s L.I.A.R. The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations, a handbook for
The latest challenge asked you to compose a poem beginning with the last line of any well-known poem and ending with its first line, the new poem being on a different subject from the original. This was a wildly popular comp, which elicited a witty and wide-ranging entry. The effort of extracting six winners from
In Competition No. 3046 you were invited to supply a poem beginning with the last line of any well-known poem and ending with its first line, the new poem being on a different subject all together. This was a wildly popular comp, which elicited a witty and wide-ranging entry that was both pleasurable and
The latest challenge asked for poems about euphemisms. You avoided politics and sex (mostly), preferring, like Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch, to focus on the language of dying and the words and expressions we call on to avoid the D-word. And there are plenty of them — David Crystal has written that there are more
In Competition No. 3045 you were invited to provide a poem about euphemisms. You avoided politics and sex (mostly), preferring instead to focus on the language of dying and the words and expressions that enable us to sidestep the D-word (according to David Crystal, there are more than 1,000 words for death categorised in
The call for lessons in the facts of life courtesy of a well-known character in fiction sent many of you running to children’s stories for inspiration. While Jayne Osborn recruited Dr Seuss — ‘Doing sex is good fun, and it’s easy to do./ Let me demonstrate, using Thing One and Thing Two…’ — Ted Harrison
In Competition No. 3044 you were invited to provide a lesson in the facts of life courtesy of a well-known character in fiction. There is space only for me to commend Jayne Osborn, who recruited Dr Seuss: ‘Doing sex is good fun, and it’s easy to do./ Let me demonstrate, using Thing One and
The latest competition asked for a short story inspired by the Salisbury poisonings. Ian McEwan, a writer who is fascinated by spying, was asked recently on the Today programme how he would begin a novel inspired by the current confrontation with Russia. The image that comes to mind, he said, was of a lion hunting
In Competition No. 3043 you were invited to provide a short story inspired by the Salisbury poisonings. Ian McEwan, a writer who is fascinated by spying, was asked recently on the Today programme how he would begin a novel inspired by the current confrontation with Russia. The image that comes to mind, he said,
For the latest challenge, inspired by the American parodist Frank Jacobs’s 1975 version of ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘As If Lewis Carroll Were a Hollywood Press Agent in the Thirties’, you were asked to come up with a Holly-wood-themed ‘Jabberwocky’ for our times. Jacobs begins: ”Twas Bogart and the Franchot Tones/ Did Greer and Garson in the Wayne;/
In Competition No. 3042, a challenge inspired by the American parodist Frank Jacobs’s 1975 version of ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘As If Lewis Carroll Were a Hollywood Press Agent in the Thirties’, you were invited to provide a Hollywood–themed ‘Jabberwocky’ for our times. Jacobs begins: ‘’Twas Bogart and the Franchot Tones/ Did Greer and Garson in the Wayne;/
This week’s challenge marks the centenary this year of the birth of Muriel Spark. ‘I still take a poetic view of life as I see it through the novel,’ Spark once said, explaining that she viewed her novels as long prose poems. So a verse assignment seemed just the thing: you were asked to come
In Competition No. 3041, to mark the centenary of the birth of Muriel Spark, you were invited to submit a poem with the title ‘The Ballad of [insert place name here]. I admired Paul Carpenter’s nod to Ken Dodd (‘The Ballad of Knotty Ash’) and David Silverman’s caustic, comic ‘Ballad of Westgate Shopping Centre’,
For the latest challenge you were asked to come up with poems against poets or poetry. Plato started it, of course, but over the ages poetry has been accused of many sins: elitism, aestheticising horror, inadequacy as an agency of political change — to name a few. In what was a wide-ranging and spirited entry
In Competition No. 3040 you were invited to submit a poem against poets or poetry. Plato started it, but over the ages poetry has been accused of many sins: elitism, aestheticising horror, inadequacy as an agency of political change. In what was a wide-ranging and spirited entry there were references to Shelley (‘poets are
The latest challenge was inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s phenomenally successful memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Competitors were invited to choose a well-known figure, past or present, invent a three-verb title they felt would be appropriate for the memoir, and provide an extract from it. Some promising-sounding titles — Sleep, Dream, Fleece by Sigmund Freud, Wait, Hang
In Competition No. 3039, which was inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s phenomenally successful memoir Eat, Pray, Love, you were invited to choose a well-known figure, past or present, invent a three-verb title you felt would be appropriate for their memoir, and provide an extract from it. Some promising-sounding titles — Sleep, Dream, Fleece by Sigmund Freud,
The latest assignment was to provide a (longer) sequel to the six-word story ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’. Long before Twitter, so urban legend has it, Ernest Hemingway crafted this mini-masterpiece in response to a bet that he couldn’t write a novel in half a dozen words. This turned out to be a load
In Competition No. 3038 you were invited to provide a (longer) sequel to the six-word story ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’. Long before Twitter, so legend has it, Ernest Hemingway crafted this mini masterpiece in response to a bet that he couldn’t write a novel in half a dozen words. This turns out