In Competition No. 3261, you were invited to submit a poem about the James Webb Space Telescope. The first dazzling images captured by its infrared eyes were a welcome antidote to our terrestrial woes. They brought to mind the moment in the film Contact when Jodie Foster’s character comes face to face with a celestial
In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto unsuspected government department by means of a speech by its minister explaining its important policies. Among those entries with a distinct whiff of plausibility was Alan Millard’s Department for Silly Talks, which aims ‘to encourage
In Competition No. 3259, you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘A(n) [insert county of your choice] Lad’. There has been quite a fanfare this year to mark the centenary of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, but rather less attention has been paid to Housman’s Last Poems, also published 100 years ago. Hence this
In Competition No. 3258, you were invited to submit a postcard sent while on holiday in a well-known fictional destination of your choice. The enforced concision of postcard–writing sometimes produces little master-pieces. Alongside the clichés and forced jollity, you find lyricism and poignant detail. It’s a shame that people rarely send them these days. So
In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn, American academic, film reviewer and inventor of the filmerick. Here’s his take on Chloé Zhao’s 2020 Nomadland. They may think that you don’t have a plan, When they see that you poop in a can,
In Competition No. 3256, you were invited to take a well-known poem and recast it as a short story. Ben Hale’s ‘The Cockney Amorist’ sent me back to the delights of John Betjeman’s debut album Banana Blush (dismissed by the poet himself as ‘a vulgar pop song record’ but a favourite of John Peel). An
In Competition No. 3255, you were invited to submit a poem about imperial measures. Brian Bilston’s terrific poem ‘The Empire’s Old Clothes’ gave me the idea for this topical challenge, which proved hugely popular, drawing a gratifyingly large, varied and witty entry. Bob Johnston’s twist on ‘Ozymandias’ – ‘Look on my ounces, tons, slugs, and
In Competition No. 3254, you were invited to tweak a well-known book title to reflect the straitened times we live in and provide an extract. Honourable mentions, in a closely contested week, go to Mark Ambrose’s To Grill a Mockingbird, David Silverman’s The Great Gas Bill and to a trio of Alice’s Adventures in Poundlands
In Competition No. 3253, you were invited to write a poem entitled ‘Song of Myself’ in the style of the poet of your choice. High fives all round for a terrific entry, and an honourable mention to Martin Parker/Ogden Nash: From spermery to wormery via germery and infirmery. Looking back, life has been mostly alas
In Competition No. 3252, you were invited to write a letter of condolence on the mis-fortune of an acquaintance which, intentionally or not, would have the effect of lowering rather than raising the spirits. An example of how not to write a condolence letter, according to New York-based funeral director Amy Cunningham, was Nancy Mitford’s
In Competition No. 3251, you were invited to submit a poem to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee in the style of a poet present or past. Perhaps inspired by the lines written by William McGonagall to mark the death of his beloved Queen Victoria – Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,/And I
In Competition No. 3250, you were invited to submit a sonnet to Mammon. It was ‘Epigram for Wall Street’, attributed to the oft-impoverished Edgar Allan Poe, that prompted me to set this moolah-themed challenge. In a large, thoughtful and winningly varied entry, there were echoes ranging from Keats, Milton and Barrett Browning to Gordon Gekko.
In Competition No. 3249, you were invited to submit an extract from a Mills & Boon novel whose central character is a contemporary politician. The much-mocked pictures of a proudly hirsute, manspreading Macron, looking every inch the M&B hero, gave me the idea for this challenge. But he was nudged aside – in a truly
In Competition No. 3248, you were asked to submit the last will and testament of a fictional character. In a smallish entry, Frank McDonald’s Ancient Mariner made a splash: To make amends with my last breath I must give more than words, So my small fortune I bequeath To a charity for birds. I was
In Competition No. 3247, you were asked to submit the reflections of a well-known writer on a career path they might have taken. Most famous writers have had day jobs – Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs, Harper Lee worked as an airline ticket agent, and Joseph Heller was a blacksmith’s apprentice. But what about those missed
In Competition No. 3246, you were invited to submit a poem in the style of the poet of your choice about a problematic appendage. Taking pride of place alongside Philip Larkin’s troublesome penis were Heaney’s big toe, Shelley’s belly, and a series of noses, among them Mike Morrison/Ogden Nash: This nose/conk/beak/hooter/schnozzle Has brought me nothing
In Competition No. 3245, you were asked to take a passage from a classic of French literature and recast it in Franglais. This challenge invited you to engage in the parlour game popularised by the late Miles Kington, whose much-loved ‘Let’s Parler Franglais’ columns in Punch were described by Michael Bywater as a ‘macaronic jeu
In Competition No. 3244, you were invited to submit a poem to mark St George’s Day that rivals in awfulness the one Bono recently penned for St Paddy. As Sam Leith wrote, in a terrifically funny and instructive piece, Bono’s offering was ‘technically incompetent to a degree that constituted an insult to the very craft
In Competition No. 3243, you were invited to submit a poem about the recent discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance. This comp, suggested by a kind reader who thought a chink of good cheer amid the general bleakness worth celebrating, elicited a smallish entry in which echoes ranged from Keats to Benny Hill. An honourable
In Competition No. 3242, you were asked to submit a short story that is a mash-up of cli-fi with a genre of your choice. In his 2016 book The Great Derangement, the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh questioned why ‘climate change cast a much smaller shadow on literature than it does on the world’. Six years
