LitRev Results for the 'Recipe' Comp
 

None of us came within a whisker of this one. Oh well, we can't win 'em all!
I hasten to add that it's not sour grapes or anything (I didn't enter this one), but the judges are either unaware, or have chosen to ignore the fact, that 'marinade' is a noun - 'marinate' is the verb. It's a very common mistake.
Next month's competition came as a bit of a shock to me! (See new thread.)

Jayne

Report by Tom Fleming (Literary Review Deputy Editor)

This month’s challenge was to write a recipe in verse form. Nick Syrett wins first prize and £300; Alison Prince wins second prize and £150; and Colin Wood wins £10. There were several other impressive entries this month, as well as a few that read a little too much like actual recipes. They may yet prove useful.

First Prize
Jan de Heem by Nick Syrett

Fetch me lobsters, crabs and oysters,
Pineapples and plums and figs,
Godly claret from the cloisters,
Hams from their seraphic pigs,
A loaf as domed as a rotunda,
Pies, their pastry pulled asunder,
Berry innards spread like plunder,
Lime-rinds plumped like periwigs;

Each must sing its own quintessence:
Oyster shells as sharp as shards,
Wine that’s warm with incandescence,
Armoured crabs like palace guards;
Green glass grapes in bunched perfection,
An apple’s porcelain complexion.
Hymn the flesh’s insurrection
Underneath the cold façades;

Set pious pewter, silver bright,
Call Heda, Kelf or Jan de Heem
To marinade in lattice light
Each scattered fruit and jug of cream
And work their quiet work until
They’ve caught its life and held it still
Within the aspic of their skill,
Within the savour of their scheme.

Second Prize
Recipe for all forms of avoidance by Alison Prince

When threatened by necessity, there are
stratagems you may usefully employ.
First – routine. Continue to enjoy
the little comforts established before
requests began their petty-minded whine.
Sleep in the sun, or if wet, close the eyes
in front of the TV. It would be wise
to disconnect the phone in case some swine
should try to call you. Second – delegate.
Deploy a liar. Do not try to use
your wife for this, as she may well refuse,
in petty triumph, to co-operate
when needed. Third – avoidance. Go away,
feign illness, claim that intensive research
on burial customs of the Coptic church
must keep you in the Bodleian all day.
Fourth – compliance. Wear a ready smile
if cornered. Look surprised. ‘Good gracious me,
I’d no idea there was such urgency.
I’ll see to it at once.’ If done with style
it wins you weeks. Do not attempt to cry –
that’s only for females. Deeply unfair
of course, but there is no need for despair.
Last – the trump card. You can always die.

Vegan Recipes for One by Colin Wood

When I surveyed the wondrous mess –
Pea, Prune and Parsnip Bourguignon –
I cursed the day I first set eyes
On Vegan Recipes for One.

I’d ruled out Beetroot Shepherd’s Pie
And Artichoke Toad-in-the-Hole
And steeled myself against the lure
Of Leek and Lettuce Casserole

And settled for the Bourguignon.
At least the pictured plate looked nice –
A pretty, compact, blended ring
Upon a fluffy bed of rice.

So, ready, steady, cook – but then,
On opening the oven door
The prunes and parsnips lay marooned
Like flotsam on a pebbly shore.

The 1/8 pt. dry cider made
A urine-coloured sea that lapped
The shingly rice. Around it lay
Pea-pellets, as if mice had crapped.

I sighed, and dished it up, and took
A pickle-fork for my harpoon
And sat down gloomily to spear
A swollen, sad, testicular prune.

First prize deserved it.

I wonder who Nick Syrett is. He wins quite often.

Beautful poem; worthy winner.

Agree, the first prize-winner is marvellous.

John, you don't suppose?... could it be?... that our Bazza is also Nick Syrett? And I've wondered for YEARS and YEARS who Noel Petty is. He keeps himself well covered, whoever he is, but I do suspect it's a pseudonym for one of our great writers. If it's not Bazza, it could be Bill Greenwell; who knows? (I wish I did!!!)

Jayne

Could this be him?

If so, he is a true Renaissance man...U.S. college fraternities and Flemish still lifes! :)

I never had Nick Syrett down as an American, Mary, though now you come to mention it, it sounds as if it could be more of a US name than a UK one!

OK, perhaps it's a pseudonym of Chris O'Carroll's then!!! ;) :)

Jayne

Just one tiny Dutch nit about the "Jan de Heem" poem (LL18 and 20). "de Heem" does not rhyme with "cream" if you pronounce it correctly! It's pronounced "de Haim" (!) :)

I think, Susan, that your nit is quite a big one. I would never rhyme Van Gogh with anything for the same reason. I've no idea how it is pronounced - certainly not 'Van Goff' which is what we say, or 'Van Goe' which seems to be preferred by Americans. Tricky language Dutch.

There are those who pronounce it Van Goff
But I think that's decidedly off
And as for Van Go,
That's bollocks, you know.
It's more of a guttural cough.

Thanks for the thought, Jayne. I had a non-winning horse in this race under my own name, and nothing under any other. And I've never written a book about college fraternities.

(Susan, there must be places in the British Isles where "cream" is pronounced to rhyme with "Haim." English is spoken in a dizzying variety of not always mutually intelligible dialects.)

And if not, Chris, I'm sure "Heem" is pronounced "Heem" in most English-speaking countries! :)

John, if you wish to say "van Gogh" properly, you must make a phlegmy eruption out of both "g"s: "eghchhh"!

It takes years of practice, although the Dutch climate helps. As far as I know there is no rhyme word for it, not in Dutch either.

I was taught to pronounce it by a Frisian poet I read with at StAnza. It was sort of FON HOOCH (with the first H heavily aspirated, the OO short, as in English "look" and the CH formed half by a Scottish "loch" and half an attempt to clear the throat of something unusual).

But that's probably Frisian dialect.

I have no rhymes to offer.

Cream is pronounced craim in parts of Ireland.

Nice limerick, John. I think Susan once told me throat specialists flourish in Holland and I can well believe it after hearing what they do to an unassuming little word like 'weg'. (Macerate it somewhere in the back of the mouth and then spit the bits out).

Whatever the merits of the winner, I thought Colin Wood's vegan offering was neatly hilarious and worthy of the web equivalent of being cut out and pasted in a scapbook. No doubt you need to scant or swallow a syllable to deal with 'testicular' in the last line, but that's one helpful feature of BE.

Well, he may not be "one of ours", but this seems an appropriate moment to answer some of the questions that were posed in this thread at the time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The winner of this year’s Literary Review Grand Poetry Prize, sponsored by The Mail on Sunday, is so secretive his family know he has entered a competition only when he wins one.

Nick Syrett is a diplomat in the Foreign Office, and he maintained his low profile by being in Washington DC on business when his prize was awarded at a lunch in London’s Fitzroy Square where guests included Sir Tim Rice and Mail on Sunday editor Geordie Greig.

Nick’s wife Nina was presented with the £5,000 cheque by Samantha Bond, an actress familiar to Government operations abroad through her role as Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films. Nina, 50, said at the lunch: ‘All Nick ever says about writing poems is, “Can you think of another word for. . .?”

Miss Bond read out Nick’s poem, Jan de Heem, which he wrote when the Literary Review asked contributors for poems that were recipes in verse form. The prize was created 22 years ago by the Literary Review’s late editor Auberon Waugh for poems that ‘rhyme, scan and make sense’.

This is the last year it will be sponsored by The Mail on Sunday. Literary Review editor Nancy Sladek said: ‘We have had very generous support from The Mail on Sunday for many years and we are profoundly grateful for this.’

Nick, 51, who was awarded the Order of St Michael and St George in 2008, has represented Britain in countries such as Colombia, Angola and Kenya.

The Syretts, who have 15-year-old twins, Tabitha and Luke, now live in Broad Town in Wiltshire. ‘It’s a house with literary connections,’ said Nina, explaining they had bought it from Mail on Sunday book critic Craig Brown and his author wife Frances Welch.
Dominic Connolly

SECRETIVE: Diplomat Nick Syrett’s family know that he has entered a competition only when he wins it

Yup... I do approve your attention to detail! I wonder if changing cream to crème would have helped matters? (Would a jug of crème be likely on such a feast-table?) Of course, it's academic now... :)