[John Whitworth]

Bill and Bazza (sounds like a Children's TV show) won money from the unattractive small ads, and so did Marian Shore and Robert Schechter. Congratulations all round. The full results are under 'Competition'.

The new comp looks just our sort of thing.

No. 2635: Mea culpa
You are invited to incorporate the following homophones into a poem (16 lines maximum) bemoaning the general decline in standards of literacy: ‘elicit’, ‘illicit’, ‘lesson’, lessen’, ‘Dane’, ‘deign’, ‘dissent’, ‘descent’. Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 17 February.

A cutting edge production of 'Hamlet' with Ophelia as a homosexual transvestite is hovering somewhere at the back of my consciousness. I'll get back to you on this. Or not, as the case may be.

[Roger Slater]

Thanks, John. The first time I've ever been paid for prose. Nice to be there with Marion.

Here's the link: http://www.spectator.co.uk/wit-and-w...petition.thtml

Notice that the description of last week's contest now says "elicit" instead of "illicit," perhaps in honor of the new contest. (Oh, I get it. That's why the new contest is called "mea culpa").

Onward:

My lessen won't illicit
your descent if I complain
the world has gone illiterate
and kids today won't dane

do anything to lesson
their elicit, foul dissent.
The Deign said, "Something's rotten,"
and I know now what he meant.
.
.
.

[Susan McLean]

Congrats, Roger (and Marion, Bill, and Basil). In S2L1, you need to put "to" before "do." That may require finding a substitute for "anything," if you don't want an anapest there.

Susan

[Marion Shore]

Nice to be there with you too Bob, as well as "our own" Bill and Basil!

This win was quite a surprise. I was about to throw in the towel. (again)

[Roger Slater]

I may have to change the "arse" line, but it's in for now.

KIDS TODAY

If it's disgusting and illicit,
kids today don't want to miss it.
But if it's thinking you'd elicit,
stand back: kids today will diss it.

Kids today are like the Dane:
who can know if they're insane?
"Read!" we tell them. They won't deign.
Reading gives their arse a pain.

But I'll admit some kids dissent.
They love to read. They represent
a cure for culture's sad descent
and give the lie to my lament.

[John Whitworth]

I think arse will get past Vicky if that's what you are worrying about, Roger.

Here's mine:

Mea Culpa

We must never, never miss it
When a usage is elicit.
We must vow, without descent,
Not to say what isn’t meant.
And incontinently press on
To internalize this lessen.
If we fail we are insane
Like the suicidal Deign.

You can easily illicit
We are all of us complicit
In the way our language went,
Its precipitate dissent
To the present ugly mess and
Our resolve must never lesson.
Doctor Johnson wouldn’t dane
To the fooleries that reign.

[Bill Greenwell]

Bill and Bazza (sounds like a Children's TV show)

Surely 'the kind of thing you'd hear late at night on Radio 3'?

Well done to Roger and Marion

[basil ransome-davies]

So far everyone seems to have taken the prescribed words as rhyme-words, though they are only eye-rhymes & Lucy doesn't say you have to use them that way.

[Jayne Osborn]

Congratulations Bill, Bazza, Marion and Roger!

Having ascertained from The Oldie (in one of my bouts-rimés posts) that we can submit multiple entries, can anyone please tell me whether we're afforded the same luxury with The Speccie?

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by basil ransome-davies

So far everyone seems to have taken the prescribed words as rhyme-words

and to have limited themselves to only those as homophones. Additional homophones, which the rules seem to allow, might help an entry stand out among its fellows.