[Bill Greenwell]

I feel your pain, or possibly Oily Faerie Pun, since I have been anagramming as badly as I can this afternoon. This has produced the unusable fact that Stevie Smith is 'I vet theisms,' and that Emily Dickinson is 'None. I’m idly sick.' - neither any use in The Name poem.

I hate anagrams. But I've had a go. My only secret is not taking holidays, and entering every week since 1978, so I am in the habit... But I have no idea why I am on the current roll. It happened in 1981, but not since, until now, despite entering under pseudonyms - ironically, usually anagrams.

The probable secret to winning is to suspect what everyone else is going to do, and then do something different.

Nice to meet you all. I discover that I have been a member since 2006, which just shows you how idle I really am.

Bill

[Julie Steiner]

Bill, I'm delighted you're one of ours! Even if I'm momentarily discouraged by the prospect that your verse has beaten the boogers out of mine NOT ONLY under the name "Bill Greenwell", but under anagrammatic pseudonyms as well...

[R. S. Gwynn]

Welcome, Bill Greenwell, rebelling well. I've certainly taken your name in vain enough recently, especially when I don't even earn an h.m.

[FOsen]

So, what's the consensus - a different poet for each line or the same one throughout? If the latter, thanks to Bill, I've already got:

I vet theisms,
Hives me tits!

Frank

[Terese Coe]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

No. 2592: Mixed Messages
You are invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Name’ (16 lines maximum) in which each line is an anagram of the name of a well-known (and specified) poet. Entries to ‘Competition 2592’ by 16 April or email: lucy@spectator.co.uk.

Here's my educated guess, this time in detail: Speccie/Lucy (or any good writer) would not phrase the challenge as written above if each line needed to be the same poet's name. The challenge would have said something like "in which each line is another anagram of the same well-known poet's name."

Betcha!

[Roger Slater]

I don't know. Any good writer would not have phrased it in a way that requires other good writers to discuss what was intended. Do you really think that we are supposed to write a poem where every line is an exact anagram of the same poet's name? Quite a tall order, I think. I do think the directions are entirely consistent with a different poet's name in every line.

[Terese Coe]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I don't know. Any good writer would not have phrased it in a way that requires other good writers to discuss what was intended. Do you really think that we are supposed to write a poem where every line is an exact anagram of the same poet's name? Quite a tall order, I think. I do think the directions are entirely consistent with a different poet's name in every line.

Hoo-boy! Of course, Bob...major typo on my part. I've fixed the above post to state what I meant to say. No way they would want every line with the same poet's name [--as I had already said (thoroughly confusing, as you must have noticed) in my unedited last line in the previous post! Anagram hell indeed.]

[John Whitworth]

Here is what the divine Lucy emailed back to me this morning.

Dear John
You are certainly not being old and foolish; the brief for the comp was not well expressed, and what is more there was a mistake (entirely my fault).
I meant to ask for a poem in which each line 'contains' an anagram of the name of a poet. (I was intending it to be anagrams of different poets' names but, as you say, it is ambiguously expressed and in fact any combination you suggest would be acceptable).
As I have already received a couple of entries, and won't have a chance to put in a clarification until next week's issue, I think that the fairest thing to do is to split the comp into two categories, with three winners in each. That is to say that those who wish to follow the original brief may do so (I predict there won't be many!) and those who prefer to do so can follow the revised brief.
I hope that's clear. Now I just need to find a more succinct way of explaining it.
By the way, I am so sorry not to have thanked you before for the comp idea that you suggested. It's a good one and is in the cupboard, as they say.
Best wishes
Lucy

What she suggests is a much better competition I think. Lines containing toilets and skate and hell yes stretch to infinity. I think I shall try this one.

I can't remember the competition I suggested. I hope I had the good sense to make it one I have a winner stashed away for.

[Roger Slater]

I still don't get it. Does this mean that each line can contain, in addition to the letters of the poet's name, other letters as well? So, for example, if the exact anagram is:

BROTHER REC ETHER

you can turn the line into

BROTHER RECEIVED EITHER A LETTER OR A PACKAGE

or pretty much any line you like containing, at a minimum, the letters in the anagram?

[Bill Greenwell]

is that each line has to contain a poet's name, anagrammed, i.e.
AA Milne = A menial, so a line could be 'I once knew the name of a menial'.

I have to say this is a lot easier, damn it (I think I am the 'one or two entries so far') - it did my brain no good abiding by what I assumed were the original rules.

The hard part is getting the poem to fit the title, I think.

Bill