[John Whitworth]

Heavens, George well done. Martin Fagg was the titan involved. A schoolmaster in Shrewsbury I believe. I met Roger Woddis once at a reading in a London bookshop. He was aggrieved the day I met him, whether just locally or, as it were, cosmically, I could not say. Did not E.O. Parrott have a canal Barge, Maude Gracechurch. And the Parrott of course edited that excellent primer of verse forms, 'How to be well-versed in Poetry', which I commend to all Sphereans who do not possess it.

[Julie Steiner]

Blake's Macbeth

Dagger, Dagger, burning bright,
Sensible to naught but sight,
Handle toward my hand; I try
To clutch thee, but can’t do so. Why?

Fatal vision, art thou not
Sensible to being caught
In the hand? or art thou but
Proof I’m going off my nut?

What the dudgeon? What the blade?
What the gouts of blood, new-made?
What the heck? I see thee still.
Thou marshall’st me the way I will.

Dagger, Dagger, burning bright,
Sensible to naught but sight,
Why not, at bloody business time,
Dare frame the servants for my crime?

[Roger Slater]

Great, Julie. Now there are so many fine entries, all of them consuming the full sixteen lines, that there may not even be room left over for honorable mentions. Excellent poem, though.

[George Simmers]

'Oh what a rogue and peasant slave...' by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller:

I ain't nothin' but a hound dog
And a rogue is what I is,
But this actor makes it seem like
He is in a total tizz.
He's a weepin' over Hec'ba -
Though she ain't no friend of his.

I'm supposed to be high-classed
But I just deserve to swing.
Still, I got myself a notion
That maybe the play's the thing.
Me I ain't never caught a rabbit
But I might just catch a king.

[Catherine Tufariello]

An inspired choice of author and poem, Julie! That's terrific.

I hear that Graham Greene once entered, under a pseudonym, a Speccie that required the imitation of his own style--and came second. Anyone know more about this? I'd love to read his entry and the one that came first.

[Roger Slater]

Catherine, a quick Google search tells me GG wrote reviews for the Spectator, but it was the New Statesman whose contest he entered:

Despite his seriousness, Graham Greene greatly enjoyed parody, even of himself. In 1949, when the New Statesman held a contest for parodies of Greene's writing style, he submitted an entry under the pen name "N. Wilkinson" and won second prize. His entry comprised the first two paragraphs of a novel, apparently set in Italy, The Stranger's Hand: An Entertainment. Greene's friend, Mario Soldati, a Piedmontese novelist and film director, believed that it had the makings of a suspense film about Yugoslav spies in postwar Venice. Upon Soldati's prompting, Greene continued writing the story as the basis for a film script. Apparently, however, he lost interest in the project, leaving it as a substantial fragment that was published posthumously in The Graham Greene Film Reader (1993) and No Man's Land (2005). The script for The Stranger's Hand was penned by veteran screenwriter Guy Elmes on the basis of Greene's unfinished story, and cinematically rendered by Soldati. In 1965 Greene again entered a similar New Statesman competition pseudonymously, and won an honourable mention.

[Mary Meriam]

George, I'm especially tickled by your Plath and most recent Hamlet.

[Roger Slater]

Choosing Rhyme (anonymous sources)

Eeeny, meeny, miny, minx,
Woe betide the man who thinks!
Every time I use my noodle,
I learn again that life is brutal.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mee,
Should I die, or should I be?
Who among us wouldn't care to
End the shocks that flesh is heir to?

Eeeny, meeny, miny, murry,
Should I dawdle, should I hurry?
Let me stop and take a breath.
Perhaps I will not care for death?

Eeeny, meeny, miny, moe,
The more I think, the less I know.
I have no answers, only questions.
Folks, I'm open to suggestions.

[Marion Shore]

Wow! The competition is fierce on this one! I predict an Erato landslide!

[John Whitworth]

Well, it will be if they actually enter, and enter the right competition!