A win for Rob and an HM for Peter. Congratulations to them both!
We’re back to only three poems being published in the magazine, as there's now a new Bridge column which occupies a third of the page.
Next comp is ‘The Wrong Kind of Apple’ (see new thread).
Jayne
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Oldie Competition
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby Tessa Castro
In Competition no 190 you were invited to write a poem called ‘The Best County’ or ‘The Worst County’. The worst were generally more entertaining. Even praise was often back-handed. ‘Devon, Glorious Devon’s better / Because, basically, it’s wetter,’ began Colin Bostock-Smith, who concluded: ‘And those who don’t like getting wet / Can bugger off to Somerset.’ Peter Goulding wrote a fine paean to the dullness of Offaly. Commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £30, with the bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to the single-minded Rob Stuart.
In Norfolk folk are vile and base,
They’re foul of heart and foul of face
And make this unappealing place
A living hell.
Their sordid taste for incest shows
In supernumerary toes.
A local with just two of those
Is doing well.
They spend the damp and dreary days
In philistinic, bumpkin ways.
Their only use for Shakespeare plays
Is toilet roll.
And even if these missing links
Enjoy their county’s country stinks,
The out-of-towner gags and thinks
‘God, what a hole!’
Rob Stuart
Set in the Midlands, but well to the west,
our county of Herefordshire must be the best
with its low population and only one city
plus cute towns and villages, all postcard pretty.
Black-and-white houses: eye-candy supreme
for tourists who go all weak-kneed at a beam.
Our white-faced red cattle, so famous worldwide,
are farmed, like our apples and hops, with great pride.
We locals ourselves are unhurried and affable,
thanks to the cider, so golden and quaffable.
Our Hereford accent’s more Welsh than ooh-arr,
for Taff-land is barely five minutes by car.
Life’s in the slow lane – there’s just the M50,
which does very little to make travel nifty.
Our maidens are fair and our crime rate is low
and, just like the Wye, we all goes with the flow.
Liz Summerson
Oi am a Devon farmer,
Oi likes my scrumpy rough.
Oi haven’t a clue about karma,
But us knows that Devon is duff.
Oi lives in a filthy farhouse
At the end of a thikky lane.
Oi haven’t a clue about Bauhaus,
And I don’t think Oi’ve ever been sane.
It’s the same all over Devon,
Where the cows is splattered with muck.
If anyone says this be heaven,
Ee must be a bloody daft duck.
Oi’ve lived all my life in Devon,
Where the folks grows up a bit slow,
But Oi’m three score years and seven,
So us may not have that long to go.
Paul Elmhirst
The Oldie 'The Best / Worst County' comp results
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