[Maryann Corbett]

These are all out of my league, but I'm laughing and enjoying. More, please!

[Roger Slater]

If I hadn't already sent mine in at this point, I wouldn't even bother. What's next? Are Richard Wilbur and XJ Kennedy going to have a gander? With each new posting, I feel more and more like a rogue and peasant slave.

Marion, I think the line is just fine.

Catherine, nice to see you here. Not fair using an actual Emily Dickinson poem, though. Or so it almost seems.

[Susan McLean]

Stunningly good, Catherine.

Susan

[Marion Shore]

Bob, the gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Your Dorothy Parker is a gem. Surely a contender.

Catherine, nice to see you here. Your Emily is really good... probably too good for this contest. So, to echo Mr. Slater, maybe you shouldn't bother entering it.

[Catherine Tufariello]

Right, the point isn't just to be authentic-sounding (I always knew that dissertation would come in handy someday!) but OTT, hence funny. Which is a tall order, even if you all make it look easy. And there's way too much competition for Hamlet's soliloquy to be a prudent choice for a newbie.

Here's another attempt.

666

Because I hate the Moor—
And Him who starts with C. —
I’ll make a Plot to snare them Both
In double Knavery—

For C. has robbed my Place—
The Moor—my Wife—has Topped*—
Or so They Say—and that’s Enough
To see—his Heart—is—Stopped—

*var: Schtupped [The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Variorum Edition, ed. Thomas H. Johnson]

Marion, I forgot to say this before, but you should keep that line you were asking about.

[Roger Slater]

Catherine, you should question Marion's motives just a bit when she tells you not to enter your Hamlet. I hate myself for saying this, but yours would stand a very good chance of winning 25 pounds. But British currency is so hard to exchange, and you'll need to stand in line at the bank forever, and the bank takes such a big fee, that I suppose it's not worth it. So yes, don't bother entering. Listen to Marion.

[basil ransome-davies]

Marion's is a hoot, though I would prefer 'While Uncle Claudius shags my mum' to 'While my uncle shags my mum'. It makes the line a better length & I feel naming the uncle makes it funnier. 'Shag' - v. Brit - seems to have taken hold in the US (via Austin Powers, I imagine). Till recently I'd only encountered it as baseball argot, probably in Ring Lardner, as in 'shagging flies in the outfield'. I suppose you could use 'screw' or 'pork', but probably for the Speccie 'shag' is right.

[John Whitworth]

Pork' is new to me. 'Shag' in my youth was definitely down market, right common in fact, but nowadays even royalty says it. As for doing it, of course they always led the field at that.

When Kingsley Amis calls somebody 'an old shag' what do you suppose he means by it? There is a bird, a small cormorant, very common in Scotland, called the shag.

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag

You know!

[Julie Steiner]

Another thought for overseas entrants...you might ask to have any winnings made payable to Roger Collett, Arrowhead Press, 70 Clifton Road, Darlington, Co. Durham, DL1 5DX United Kingdom. The collected works of M.A. Griffiths is scheduled to be printed in November, and it looks like the price might be in the neighborhood of 21 pounds. Stay tuned!

[Edited to say--sorry, I had a dyslexic moment there. Maz's book will be in the neighborhood of £12, not £21, which is pretty good for a 400-page book. (This would put the book's cost around $19 for US folks.)]

[Susan McLean]

Got Milk of Human Kindness? Take Mine--Please!

The raven is hoarse as he croaks the approach
to my castle of Duncan, that royal slow coach.
So come, all you spirits that tend on things human,
unsex me! I’ve had it with being a woman.
Extinguish compunction and stopper remorse:
allow my fell purpose to follow its course.

You murdering ministers, come to my call
and convert all the milk in my bosom to gall.
Come, spirits of mischief! Come, thick night, as well,
in a cloak of dun smoke from the caverns of hell,
so the wound that it makes can’t be seen by my knife,
nor the heavens cry “Hold!” as I take Duncan’s life.


Robert Browning, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”