Eratosphere - Speccie Competition Supersize Me

I couldn't win my own competition. However, Chris O'Carroll and Bill Greenwell were there to uphold the honour of the Sphere and Bazza nearly was.

Lucy Vickery 2 February 2013
In Competition No. 2782 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of fatness. Thanks to John Whitworth for this magnificent and timely topic. What better, at this self-flagellatory time of year, than a celebration of the consequences of festive excesses?

My heart went out to Basil Ransome-Davies, who bemoans the metamorphosis of Sophie Dahl from plushly plump to fashionably slender:

But farewell to the Rubens plumpness Sophie used to flaunt,
For fashion’s sake now traded for the skeletally gaunt.

And I enjoyed Charles Curran’s entry, which finishes with this rousing couplet:

Three cheers for every man with XL trousers!
We’ll never join the calorie-counting grousers!

The prizewinners below take £25 each. D.A Prince scoops the extra fiver

Gaunt winter spareness starves our sight:
Bleak scrawny trees, bark black as night.
So draw the curtains, lock the door,
And contemplate what Rubens saw.

He relished flesh. You’d warm your hands
At nakedness he understands:
That rich abundance, ample grace
In hips, thighs, buttocks, breasts and face,
While dimpled creases, rolls of pink,
Enlarge us more than we might think.

Quick throb of blood, soft gleam of skin,
Make tangible the joy within —
The richer life, the heart that sings,
Of carnal, satisfying things,
So boldly making manifest
That weighty bodies are the best.
D.A. Prince

‘Give me the fat!’ cried Mrs Sprat,
‘For that’s where all the taste is;
Bring streaky bacon, mutton fat —
To hell with where my waist is —

Beef dripping, lard, and turkey grease,
Just pile it on my platter.
Pork crackling, oily ducks and geese;
Who cares if I grow fatter?

I’m in a gastronomic dream;
A fat-free diet? Shove it!
Bring on the butter and the cream —
Cholesterol? I love it!

My husband wouldn’t touch a speck;
He said that fat could kill.
But then he broke his stupid neck,
So now I eat my fill.’
Nicholas Holbrook

Come feed with me and be my love.
We never will be wan or gaunt,
But gustatory pleasures prove,
For lavish flesh is what we want.

When we our ample curves have fed
On savoury and sweet delights,
We’ll roll voluptuous to bed
With swelling carnal appetites.

Our tongues and kindred wayward parts
Contend against whatever would
Constrain our waistlines or our hearts,
For all we banquet on is good.

We’ll be twin feasts one day for Death,
Entrées served en sarcophagus.
Our noble girth will steal his breath;
We’ll choke his grim oesophagus.
Chris O’Carroll

They say the reason to indulge
Is celebration, perfect joy:
But I insist it’s for the bulge,
The happy fat of Pickwick’s boy.

Food for gourmets? It may taste fine,
Seem exquisite on the tongue:
But if it won’t expand the waistline,
Leave one looking highly sprung,

What use is it? The point of grub
Is to expand. To fill one’s plate
Will turn you, blubbery, to a tub,
Will give your presence extra weight.

No one can evade your jolly
Triple-chins and moobs. You flesh a
Party out. What, melancholy?
Hang your blood: you’ll feel no pressure.
Bill Greenwell

The lean and hungry look has had its time;
Let me have men about me that are fat —
And women, too, unbüstenhaltered: I’m
At ease more with the buxom than the flat.
Fat folk are generous, fat folk are jolly,
Their sense of humour is a sword and shield
Against the attack of moping melancholy
To which thin people all too often yield.
Fat folk are sociable, they love good food
And drink; they set a salutary example
Of largeness, scope, abundance, amplitude
For those more self-denying and less ample.
You say I speak in clichés …If I do,
That’s fair enough: aren’t all my clichés true?
Ray Kelley

There was a time when ample girth
Would signify a certain worth:
The waistcoat button left undone
To signify one was someone;
A fellow could be stout and staunch,
Festoon with chains, not hide, his paunch.
A fair round belly capon-lined
Defined a judge in Shakespeare’s mind.
Let’s keep that image fresh: concede
The grossness of unbridled greed,
Then draw a firm, judgmental line —
Obesity’s obscene but flab is fine.
Why ape the whippet or the whale
On the adiposal scale:
The mid-point should be where we’re at
Going comfortably to fat.
W.J. Webster