The Oldie Ancient Mariner comp results
 

Well, is this a first,... or what? Four ladies as winners, and no Spherians with even so much as an Honourable Mensh!
Tessa says, "I missed some regular entrants" -- but I'm sure some of our regulars had decent offerings for this one... :confused:
Oh well, let's hope we fare better with 'Fruitcake' (see new thread for details).

Jayne

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Oldie Competition
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby Tessa Castro


In Competition no 180 you were invited to write a poem beginning: ‘It was an Ancient Mariner / Who went to Innisfree.’ On the whole, Coleridge’s insistent ballad metre won out over Yeats.
Your poor old Ancient Mariners seldom got much further than the buzzy lake isle, what with bees and pesky albatrosses. Iris Bull’s admitted at the end: ‘I’ve made a great mistake, / A sadder and a wiser man / I leave this Isle and Lake.’
Peter Davies’s Mariner looked forward to more cheerful prospects: ‘I’ll listen to the cricket sing,/ I’ll exorcise the Curse, / I’ll get away from Coleridge / And his annoying verse.’ But could he?
Chris Kelland’s Mariner was actually shot by a crossbow-wielding Albatross, like some creature in a mediaeval manuscript margin. That was nothing compared with the fate that Johannes Kerkhoven’s Mariner could expect; I can hardly recount it in a magazine for a mixed readership. Michael Bicknell adopted a literal approach to Yeats’s original and pictured the hive inhabited by a sole honey-bee, which soon began to cohabit with another, with jokey if strained consequences.
I missed some regular entrants, who were either away on their own lake isles or were the victims of thunder in the internet. But commiserations to those mentioned and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Elizabeth Brassington.

It was an ancient mariner
Who went to Innisfree.
A retirement home he bought there
And a forty inch TV.
And runner beans he grew there
Until a hosepipe ban
Put paid to all his efforts,
So he made another plan.
A rowing-boat he bought then
And posted his intention
Of running trips for tourists
Just to supplement his pension.
Then, as he rowed, tall tales he told
And scarcely paused for breath,
But the little venture ended
For he bored them all to death.
Elizabeth Brassington

It was an Ancient Mariner
Who went to Innisfree
To try his hand at growing beans –
Then found he missed the sea.

The lake had its attractions
Though he thought it rather tame
And, as for clay and wattles,
What were they, in Heaven’s name?

The peace and quiet wasn’t all
It was cracked up to be:
Those honey-bees, for instance,
Made a right cacophony.

And, though he never had a drop
To drink, it made him cross
That, when he least expected it,
He’d see an albatross.
Karen Pailing

It was an ancient mariner
Who went to Innisfree,
And nobody knew he was there
Till the vicar came for tea.

‘Now where have I seen that skinny hand,
That glittering eye?’ said he.
‘Was it sailing to Byzantium
Or stuck in a silent sea?

‘If I told you half that sailor told
Of the high seas’ wizardry
The nectar made in the bee-loud glade
Would curdle in empathy.

A sailor’s yarn is a sailor’s yarn –
You may tell or let it be.
Who gives a toss for your albatross
While there’s honey still for tea?’
Patricia Hann

It was an Ancient Mariner
Who went to Innisfree
He counted all the bean rows:
They totalled three times three.

Then looking for some peace there
He wandered down a glade
And saw a cabin and a hive
That old man Yeats had made.

The bees were here, the bees were there
The bees were all around.
A gaunt and ghostly albatross
Looked on without a sound.

He heard lake water lapping near
And fell upon his knees,
Then reached an unpoetic end:
Being stung to death by bees.
Gillian Ewing

Not only is no Spherical on the list but I am still waiting for the Dictionary which I supposedly won in Comp. 178. I pointed this out to "Tessa" but received no reply.
Are these signs of discrimination against us all, do you suppose?

meh
 

Call me a sore loser, but I am as little tickled by the winning entries as I was by the set title. Same goes for the next one, for that matter. I really believe this mag is giving coffin-dodging a bad name.

Maybe against men -- I got my dictionary for Comp 179 :D

I don't think much of these, but fair play to them, I suppose; Tessa is the measure of all things, &c.

It does rankle that so many of the victorious lines don't scan properly, though.

Martin,
I've just spoken to Josh at The Oldie, who assured me he would deal with this today; he promised to ring me back and confirm, so I expect to come home later and find an answerphone message to that effect!

The dishing out of prizes is nothing to do with Tessa. (Let's not resort to inverted commas - I know Tessa's identity but it's meant to be a secret ;))

Jayne

PS. Regarding these (and other winning entries that we sometimes feel aren't up to scratch, and say so) I posted a slightly derogatory remark years ago about the standard one month and got absolutely slated for it -- by one person in particular -- and called a 'bad sport', among other things. I'm not a bad sport at all, but in certain quarters it's deemed that one shouldn't comment adversely on the poems chosen to win. So since then I've kept schtum on the subject!!!
Hmm...but all the same... :rolleyes:

Re - missed entrants and internet thunder- Do you think The Oldie entries might also benefit from having a Deep Drills?

I must be naive. I thought Tessa was Tessa!

Nico -- shhhhh on the Tessa front! ;)

We've discussed Deep Drills before, and there's no need for our Oldie entries to be an undercover job. It's NS that won't publish anything that can openly be seen here; we're safe with both The Oldie and The Spectator, as our (usual) regular Spherian wins prove.

Jayne

Jayne,
Many thanks for your efforts re. Comp. 178.
Loyal Oldie supporter that I know you to be I am sure that the matter of Tessa, with or without inverted commas, is secure in your keeping -- and in the keeping of various others. But pseudonyms are fair game for the determinedly curious and I do not feel their owners can expect a permanent right to their assumed obscurity. Many Sphericals have pseudonyms for competition and other purposes and have not complained at their "outing". My own disguise as Leo Vincent was, in fact, stripped bare by an eminent Spherean. I was well able to deal with the small degree of temporary inconvenience which flowed from it.

And my ouija board has as yet revealed no complaint from "Saki", "Georges Sand", "Mark Twain" et al.