[Chris O'Carroll]

A win for Bill Greenwell this week, and an hon mensh for Adrian Fry. Nobody here has any complaints about the comps, so I can't imagine any of us are in with a chance for this next one.

No 4235
Set by Leonora Casement
An oldie. Complaints to the New Statesman about the Weekend (now NS) Competition. A winning entry in the 1950s read as follows: “Sir, your literary competitions are stabbing real literature in the back. Lured by the prospect of occasional guineas (and a certain exoteric réclame), numbers of gifted people fritter away time and talent week after week . . .”
Max 150 words by 12 July comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Adrian Fry]

Sir: For the last two months, the New Statesman literary competitions have been repeats of competitions held in the 1950s. I entered all of these competitions at first time of asking and, never having been successful, feel reluctant to try again when my perfectly good efforts sit on file with yourselves. My poem about Sir Stafford Cripps, for example, would come up fresh as paint today, its pithy sideswipe at fiscal tightening as relevant now as it wasn't quite when first submitted in 1954.