Lucy Vickery

Hard sell | 15 January 2015

In Competition No. 2880 you were invited to provide a publicity blurb for the Bible to sell it to a modern audience. Kieran Corcoran presents Jesus as a social media sensation — ‘He used to have 12 followers but now he has TWO -BILLION!’ — and Derek Morgan pitches the Good Book as the go-to

Rehabilitation

In Competition No. 2879 you were invited to follow in the footsteps of Hilary Mantel and provide a scene that shows a well-known villain from history or literature in an uncharacteristically kindly light. Mantel has said that she was driven by a ‘powerful curiosity’ rather than by any desire to rehabilitate Cromwell. ‘I do not

New year haiku

In Competition No. 2878 you were invited to submit a poem composed of three haikus that looks forward to the year ahead. The traditional Japanese haiku contains 17 syllables in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables (though these rules are not always observed by western poets). It is neatly summed up here

Season’s greetings | 11 December 2014

In Competition No. 2877 you were invited to submit a Christmas round robin as it might have been written by a well-known fictional character. Most of the entries were bursting with forced jocularity, but Basil Ransome-Davies, with an unusually frank Jeeves, neatly subverts the round-robin tradition of presenting a relentlessly positive face to the world.

It’s a rap

In Competition No. 2876 you were invited to submit an example of an ill-advised foray by a poet laureate, past or present, into rap. Andrew Motion’s ‘rap’, written to mark Prince William’s 21st birthday, featured in a Telegraph piece by Charlotte Runcie on the worst poems by great writers and elicited such withering comments on

Verse Viagra

In Competition No. 2875 you were invited to submit a poem about an unlikely aphrodisiac. Thanks are due to that legend of the comping world Stanley J. Sharpless, whose ‘In Praise of Cocoa — Cupid’s Nightcap’ gave me the idea for this challenge. How confessional your entries were, who can say, but I liked Adrienne

Spectator competition: ‘Jabberwocky’ for the digital age (plus: Christmas round robins from fictional characters)

The call for scenes describing a well-known character from children’s literature past grappling with a 21st-century problem drew an entry full of wit and variety. Pamela Dow reimagined Louisa May Alcott’s girls posting selfies and practising mindfulness, while Harriet Elvin’s Eeyore longed for someone to invent anti-social media, and Adrian Fry provided a thoroughly 21st-century

Problem child

In Competition No. 2874 you were invited to submit a scene written by a well-known children’s author of the past in which a character grapples with a 21st-century problem. Pamela Dow reimagines Louisa May Alcott’s girls posting selfies and practising mindfulness, while Harriet Elvin’s Eeyore longs for someone to invent antisocial media and Adrian Fry

Concrete poem

In Competition No. 2873 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of a well-known building. It was a strong entry this week and Alanna Blake, Philip Roe, Basil Ransome-Davies and W.J. Webster were unlucky losers. Frank McDonald took me at my word and submitted an actual concrete poem, which made it

Thanks but no thanks

In Competition No. 2872 you were invited to submit an author’s acknowledgments page that contains subtle indications that no thanks at all are due to those mentioned. E.E. Cummings does the anti-dedication in style in his 1935 volume No Thanks, which he self-published with financial help from his mother. Its dedication page contains a concrete

Two hander

In Competition No. 2871 you were invited to submit a dialogue in verse between man and God. The tone of the discourse was far from cordial, ranging from boredom and -disinterest to outright hostility. Here’s Alanna Blake’s disgruntled deity: ‘I’m old and growing deaf and very tired/ These are my final words: I have retired.’