[Rob Stuart]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Yes. One is allowed as many as you like. Or so I have always assumed.

Much obliged, John.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Originally Posted by Rob Stuart

Is one allowed more than one entry for Spectator comps does anyone know?

Yes, you can send in as many entries as you like. If you have more than one win in a week, Lucy will ask you to provide one or more pseudonyms so that each winning piece is attributed to a different name. ( For example, on weeks when Brian Allgar and Nicholas Holbrook are both in the money, that's two wins for one guy.) Some people send in their multiple entries with pseudonyms already attached.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Chris O'Carroll

For example, on weeks when Brian Allgar and Nicholas Holbrook are both in the money, that's two wins for one guy.

And when neither of us wins, that's two embittered souls in one body.

[RCL]

Emily Dickinson on Walt Whitman

O vatic Walt, you are so big
A One-Man multitude—
An Ark—an overflowing Barge
Of the infinitude!

O Walt of whitecaps, Waves of Words
My Quaint small verses, tightly
Measured, make my minor worlds,
But yours—volcanic—Mighty.

Omega Walt! You stalk raw bathers,
These—he’s and she’s—who fuse.
One large Love Nest—all together,
And not one Man refused.

O Walt, my Walt, refuse me Not—
A sparrow small in talks
A tiny singer in God’s Plot.
Sing me Barbaric Yawps!

[Martin Parker]

I am pretty sure that John and Brian have laid unassailable claims to the prizes -- and that is before the latter invokes the help of aliases, of which I suspect he has a greater number than Winnie the Pooh's Rabbit has friends and relations. So I am not sure what the following is doing here -- apart from having kept me out of the garden for some of the morning!

Larkin on Betjeman

She fucked him up, Miss Hunter-Dunn,
for she’d been fed the usual stuff
which parents tell their daughters: “Fun
will land a girl straight up the duff.”

She kept him talking half the night
then played the virgin’s masterstroke
and promised, once engaged, she might --
a promise which she clearly broke.

The Surrey Set hands on its genes
and daughters -- should it so bestow its
favours -- on to men of means
and not to penniless young poets.....

I hope he’ll now have better luck
with Amazonian sun-bronzed suitors
and find some, bronzed as he, to fuck
among St. Pancras’s commuters.

[Roger Slater]

I guess this one doesn't have a chance, but I'll post it here just so at least someone will be offended:


Dorothy Parker on Sylvia Plath

Men seldom make passes
At girls who breathe gasses.

[Brian Allgar]

I love your Larkin/Betjeman, Martin. The garden can wait until Spring. Time, tide, and a good joke waiteth for no man.

As for my aliases, I'm sorry to say that the only one who currently gets into print is Nicholas Holbrook, and it may soon be time to put even him down. I'm looking for a reputable taxidermist.

[Brian Allgar]

Roger, send it in. It's so short that the best you can hope for is a one-pound book token, but you're only interested in the kudos, right?

P.S. You have a typo - "makes" should be "make".

[Brian Allgar]

(Except for A. A. Milne, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)

They're changing bard at Buckingham Palace -
The previous poet went down on Alice.
(Alice is Dutch, and accustomed to dikes.)
“She certainly knows what a girly girl likes”,
Says Alice.

They're changing bard at Buckingham Palace -
The last one wrote poems with wit and with malice,
Though sometimes it’s better to leave things unsung.
“She has a delightfully eloquent tongue”,
Says Alice.

They're changing bard at Buckingham Palace -
The Queen is awarding the Laureate’s chalice
To someone she hopes will be rather more staid,
“Who won’t go corrupting a scullery-maid”,
Says Alice.

They're changing bard at Buckingham Palace -
Although the successor possesses a phallus,
The maids will be safe from unwelcome advances.
“But if you’re a boy, I don’t fancy your chances”,
Says Alice.

[Susan McLean]

Brian, I think "changing bards" would sound more natural.

Susan