[John Whitworth]

Damn! I got disqualified. But so did Martin Parker and Robert Schechter. That left Chris O'Carroll to take the chocolate biscuit and Bazza to win worthily also.

Lucy Vickery 4 May 2013
In Competition No. 2795 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet.

We’ve done this before and the results were so impressive I thought we should give it another go. This time round I reluctantly disqualified some extremely funny, well-made poems because they didn’t quite meet the brief. Unlucky losers included Martin Parker, Mae Scanlan, Ray Kelley, John Whitworth and Robert Schechter, whose pithy Bardic about-turn raised a chuckle: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Nah’.

Chris O’Carroll takes the extra fiver. The rest earn £30.

Again upon my couch I lay.
My mood was vacant, even pensive.
What blissful inward-eye display
Awaited? I was apprehensive.

‘Not daffodils this time!’ I prayed.
But like the Phrygian king of old,
I quickly found myself dismayed
By cloying quantities of gold.

This pleasant land has many hues,
With every tint of blossom teems.
Where are my reds, whites, pinks and blues?
Must yellow only haunt my dreams?

My dearest wish is that I had
Not praised this stubborn memory.
A poet could not but go mad
In such relentless company.
Chris O’Carroll

What made me think I’d never see
A poem lovely as a tree?

I’d hardly read a poem then,
Though trees were well within my ken.

I lived where trees grew all around,
But hadn’t heard of Ezra Pound.

While trees go brown and bare in Fall,
A poem never fades at all,

And trees get horrible diseases.
In poems every prospect pleases.

Poems are made with wit and flair,
So you can stick trees you-know-where.
G.M. Davis

Coward soul, effete and craven, frightened of a friendly raven
Merely looking for a haven from the arctic storm outdoor?
Paranoid and sweating rivers, racked by weeping, sighs and shivers?
Can it be my nervous liver’s yellow as a beeswaxed floor?

Never, but I tell dramatic stories like a fright fanatic,
Tales of dread from crypt and attic, narratives of death and gore.
Though a perfect Pollyanna I must fly the Gothic banner.
Ghastly terror is the manna feeding happy scribes galore.

Truth to tell, my heart is smitten if I spy a fluffy kitten,
But such things may not be written once you are a horror whore.
Sunshine, music, hearts and flowers fill with joy my leisure hours;
Business dictates blood in showers, else I’ll be unread and poor.

Thus I welcomed my dark stranger, not to me the slightest danger,
Whom, as if a wildlife ranger, I sought swiftly to restore,
Warming every frozen feather blasted by the winter weather.
Now we two abide together, man and raven, evermore.
Basil Ransome-Davies

I said the lass was like a rose,
A red, red one forsooth,
Which might have been, in love’s first throes,
A metaphoric truth.

But since I won my way with her
Beneath yon rowan tree
The features that I thought so fair
Have less appeal for me.

I’d promised long fidelity
Till a’ the seas were dry :
Though that was daft hyperbole
She still believed the lie.

But when she found me courtin’ Jean
Things went from bad to worse,
For all those things I didna mean
Were set down firm in verse!
Alanna Blake

Go gentle into your goodnight
For why complain or rage or fight?
Why waste the remnants of your breath
Pretending you can vie with Death?
What does it profit man to moan
Of leaving all the things he’s known?
Each one of us from life must sever,
So close your eyes and sleep for ever.
Don’t rage like some untutored child,
Be circumspect, be calm and mild,
Let those who mourn around you see
That you accept what has to be.
Your watchers have enough to bear
Without your anger in the air,
Without your fierce and loud lament.
Go gentle, then, and be content.
Frank McDonald

[Brian Allgar]

Congratulations to all, together with commiserations to John, Martin, and Roger/Bob.

(As for me, I can only hope that Lucy found my entries so funny as to be completely unmentionable ...)

[Chris O'Carroll]

John, did you enter both Masefield and Thomas? Lucy couldn't possibly have disqualified your "Sea-Fever" retraction. I suppose "Adlestrop" is a bit more of a judgement call. But really, what does Thomas say in that poem that one might take back? His first line says he remembers the place. Your first line says the opposite. Mission accomplished as far as I can see.

[Roger Slater]

I don't know why my 'Bardic about-turn' was disqualified. What about it didn't qualify? Since they printed the whole thing anyway, why no check?

Chris and Bazza . . . the usual felicitations. Don't you get bored winning all the time?

[Brian Allgar]

Roger, you weren't disqualified, you got an honourable mention. And hell, why no check? Look at the number of words you wrote*, and then look at how many Bazza wrote.

* Discounting Shakespeare's own words, just one! But it was a good one.

[Roger Slater]

The previous sentence seems to indicate that those named in the sentence with me were "disqualified . . . because they didn’t quite meet the brief," which I assumed was British for "they didn't follow the rules of competition."

[Brian Allgar]

I agree that Lucy's phrasing could be considered ambiguous. I read it as meaning that, in addition to the named honourable mentions (of which there are usually several), a number of other entrants were disqualified for "not meeting the brief". But I could be wrong.

[Roger Slater]

Yeah, I see the ambiguity. But John's intro viewed us as disqualified, so I was predisposed to see it his way.

[John Whitworth]

I'd rather be disqualified (for biting even) than also-ran. So perhaps I read something into the material.

[Brian Allgar]

John, I think I'd rather be also-ran than put down by the vet at the starting-post.