Eratosphere - Competition: New Year Letters

Competition: New year letters
SATURDAY, 15TH JANUARY 2011
Lucy Vickery presents this week's competition

In Competition No. 2680 you were invited to submit an acrostic poem of which the first letter of each line spells out the words Happy New Year.

This challenge elicited a whopping entry, and there were plenty of unfamiliar names among the regulars, which is always pleasing.

You were under no obligation to exude optimism and goodwill; indeed, with a few notable exceptions, those valiant souls that did attempt to inject a note of cheer failed to convince. Most didn’t bother to try, though, and Bernadette Evans’s closing couplet encapsulates the general gloomy tenor of the entry:

As politicians wonder if we’re happy,
Reality suggests the future’s crappy.

I liked George Simmers’s Hardy-inspired submission, while Mae Scanlan, G.W. Tapper, Max Ross, Lance Levens, Chris O’Carroll and Sam Gwynn were on equally fine form.
The winners, printed below, earn £25 each and W.J. Webster pockets the bonus fiver.

Heaven knows it’s never wise
At any point to look ahead:
Prediction’s so much wild surmise;
Prophetic stuff, where reason’s fled,
Yields mumbo jumbo porky pies,
No matter how the runes are read.
Each year, though, we evince surprise
When Clotho tweaks her fatal thread —
Yarn flimsier that we realise.
Enough of gloom! Enjoy instead
A state all mortal creatures prize:
Rejoice, rejoice that you’re not dead!
W.J. Webster

Hi, mother dear. Yes, Uni’s great! No news —
Apart from …well I’d better hold my tongue.
Perhaps I’ll get parole. I’m only young.
Please mother, don’t postpone your winter cruise,
You need a break. You’ve long been over strung.

No, Nigel, rest assured! I won’t postpone.
Expect a card! I’m sure you’ll cope alone.
Whatever’s troubling you, please son, don’t phone!

You needn’t fear, they’ve seized my phone.No frets.
Enjoy yourself! Dad’s gone. Feel fancy-free
And, mother, happy may your New Year be.
Relax! I’ll do my time — and pay my debts.
Alan Millard

Hope springs eternal, gives her New Year twitch
And smiles her semi-sozzled optimistic beam;
Ponders bad habits’ habits, why they itch.
Perhaps they’re not as dug-in as they seem.
Year’s followed year, but nothing changes, much.
None of the last year’s mantras lasted long,
Ending in sad excuses (lies, and such)
When willpower sagged and lofty thoughts went wrong.
Yet Hope persists: the wine was red, and flowed.
Each legless reveller’s long lost the plot
And seeks for answers down the same old road.
Rerun old Resolutions? Yeah, why not!
D.A. Prince

Heartless winter’s brought his snowfalls
and appears resolved to stay;
ponds are frozen, pavements icy,
parks are uniformly grey.
You might wonder if the Arctic
nudged us with its frigid hand.
Every home in every county
wishes winter could be banned.
Yet the buds of spring are stirring
even as we slip and slide
and to lift our wintry spirits
Royalty will take a bride.
Frank McDonald

Here’s to the haggis, cranachan and Burns,
And here’s to the hearts locked in Valentine vice,
Promise for pilgrims as under-earth churns,
Pressmen a-blub, public holiday (twice).

Yes, and to blossom, to may-poles and -bugs,
Though not to forget the fresh blooms of the rose,
Edging into our dog-days, and picnickers’ rugs,
Weeks at the seaside, and end-of-pier shows.

Yes also to harvest, its festival moon,
Earlier bedtimes, and Keatsian stanzas,
And gunpowder blowing, the fire ash strewn —
Runaway sales and some sofa bonanzas.
Bill Greenwell

How long, O Lord, how long will this year last?
A full twelve months, of course, like all the rest.
Perhaps for once You could just speed it past?
Patience! Mankind must always stand the test.

You couldn’t make it shorter? Just a bit?
No. Live with it. You have Time. Use it well.
Exactly how is that a benefit?
Waste it or spend it. Make it. Time will tell.

You win. Another year it is. I’ll try
Enduring with a laugh, so I don’t cry.
At last you’ve got it. Smile through the pain
Right to December. Then we’ll start again.
Brian Murdoch