Eratosphere - Competition: Palinode

Competition
Lucy Vickery
Wednesday, 13th January 2010
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition
In Competition No. 2629 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet.
Haunted by the success of his much-reproduced quatrain ‘The Purple Cow’, Gelett Burgess wrote a palinode to strike fear in the hearts of anthology-compilers: ‘Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,/ I’m sorry now I wrote it!/ But I can tell you anyhow,/ I’ll kill you if you quote it!’
This week the equally oft-anthologised ‘Sea Fever’, ‘Dover Beach’, ‘If’ and ‘This Be the Verse’ produced some robust recantations in an entry of record-breaking size. Some didn’t quite meet the brief but impressed none the less; honourable mentions go to a sprinkling of unlucky losers: Julie Stoner, G. McIlraith, Noel Petty, S. Wilson, Roger Theobald and Geoffrey Riley.
The winners, printed below, net £20 each. The bonus fiver is Alan Millard’s.

Though I vow that once we met,
I now confess that I was lying,
Truth to tell, with much regret,
It wasn’t me that she was eyeing.
Say I’m evil, say I’m bad,
Say I thought she’d not resist me,
Say my lips were poised, but add,
Jenny missed me.
Other lads were there beside me
Everyone, but me, she kissed,
How could Jenny so deride me?
Leave me off her kissing list?
Say I’m soulful, say I’m sad,
Say my instincts should have warned me,
Say I gave my all, but add
Jenny scorned me.
Alan Millard (‘Rondeau’, Leigh Hunt)

A snobbish poet must confess
To having called this town a mess.
A poet’s words may cause distress.
I’m humbler now.
Because your features did not seem
To fit my fond, nostalgic dream
I showed you horrid disesteem.
Forgive me, Slough.
I much regret my flippant call
For so-called friendly bombs to fall.
I do not wish you ill at all,
And so repent.
Let me in justice celebrate
Accomplishments that make Slough great:
A large commercial estate
And David Brent.
G.M. Davis (‘Slough’, John Betjeman)

If I should die — which please the Lord I won’t —
Forget my former jingoistic pride,
Ignore well-crafted metaphor and don’t
Admire my brave demeanour, for I lied.
No sheltered corner, but the stinking hell
Of rat-infested trenches will be where
My shattered remnants will decay and smell
Of putrefaction, not of English air.
Gone are the fancies of romantic youth,
The fine poetic visions of the grave
Where, sealed forever in a warm cocoon,
The best of man remains. For now the truth
Is clear: death’s horrible, however brave.
For realism wait — and read Sassoon.
Gillian Ewing (‘The Soldier’, Rupert Brooke)

Actually, everyone heard him, the dead man,
But he wasn’t worth saving:
He was proud of his prowess at sport
And not drowning but waving.
He wore tight trunks, and showing off his
strokes
Like butterfly, Australian crawl —
He’s out of his depth let’s leave it that way,
Agreed all.
If you’re sipping a cocktail at noon
On golden sands
And someone is boasting off the coast
Who needs a show of hands?
Oh, yes yes yes, it was deliciously warm
(Too hot for the attention he was craving)
He may sink I think the lifeguard said
When he starts drowning not waving.
Bill Greenwell
(‘Not waving but drowning’, Stevie Smith)

Men often make passes
at girls who wear glasses,
since a candlelit meal
makes the plainest ones feel
more grateful
with each plateful.
So please ignore
what I said before.
Martin Parker (‘News Item’, Dorothy Parker)

Come live with me, I said, and be
My love. I now unsay that plea.
I made the same appeal to Bess
And she to my delight said Yes.
Ray Kelley (‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’, attrib. Christopher Marlowe)

Your mum and dad are not to blame
For traits you wish you never had:
They gave you life, a home, a name;
The other bits are what you add.
Like/not like is yours to choose
As they before you freely chose.
The family’s not some cosmic ruse
To bring the species to a close.
Creating’s what we’re primed to do,
In reflex spurts or work of hours.
Not getting and not spending, too,
Are ways that we lay waste our powers.
So toss your pebble in the pool,
Not thinking what each ripple means.
The truth we know is nature’s rule:
What will survive of us is genes.
W.J. Webster (‘This Be the Verse’, Philip Larkin)