COMPETITION

No. 605: Today's men

The Labour party has just launched an ad- vertising campaign to denigrate the Tories and a series of unfortunate 'Yesterday's Men' are having their alleged misdemeanours paraded in public. Competitors are invited to initiate a retaliatory campaign pointing out, in parody of Labour's ads, some of the less appealing facts about Today's Men. Maximum 100 words; entries, marked 'Com- petition No. 605', by 29 May.

No. 602: The winners

Trevor Grove reports: 'Scorn not the sonnet' wrote Wordsworth, and proceeded to laud it in sonnet form. Joyce Johnson suggested that competitors might care to contribute to the bicentenary of the poet's birth by imitat- ing his idea and composing a triolet, rondel, rondeau, clerihew or limerick in praise or criticism of the form used ... A large catch. and every one of them a fine specimen, though it is clear that one or two fish in the pond aren't too sure exactly what they're meant to be specimens of. There were some notably deformed clerihews around, but most came well within the specifications—ten shillings to both the following:

E. C. Bentley Was obviously mentley Disturbed when he conceived the clerihew-

almost as gaga

As the dolt who devised the Icelandic Saga.

Ian Kelso

Edmund Clerihew Bentley Quite negligently

Invented a form of grace and wit—

This is it,

W. H. Paul here was no shortage of limericks ther—a well-earned guinea to each one tinted: Now limericks must take the blame

For much of our rude nation's shame.

The form's invitation To lewd tit-illation- Oh, sod it! It's done it again.

Margaret Cash

Wi:h a shape of its own it's imbued; That's the limerick, witty or lewd;

Two lines, then you oughter Have two more, much shorter,

Then one longer that's funny or rude.

E. 0. Parrott

The limerick still can devise

Fresh custard (poetical) pies, Can supply naughty words To bishops and birds, But it can't win a Newdigate Prize.

R. Rochester

Neat limericks gaily record

Misadventures, at home or abroad, Of eccentric old codgers, Young wives and their lodgers, Or encounters of bishop and bawd.

Robin Henderson friolets were quite as popular as the limerick tut on the whole less well done; nevertheless so guineas to the following pair of iinners:

A triolet is hard to write, That first line is repeated twice.

An eight-line poem. neat and tight, A triolet is. Hard to write One line three times It could be trite,

The subtle difference gives it spice.

A triolet is hard? To write

That first line is. Repeated twice!

Anne Norris

I loathe the dainty triolet, The Dresden shepherdess of verse.

Such artful archness on display I loathe. The dainty triolet

Has absolutely nought to say,

But is so quaint, so twee, so terse.

I loathe the dainty. Triolet-

The Dresden Shepherdess of Verse.

tan Kelso

Ind two guineas for each of the following tceedingly enjoyable rondeaus: be Rondeau ends as dancers do, A formal curtsey, and farewell.

Its graceful movement weaves a spell, The well-matched feet step lightly through The pattern—part, then meet anew,

And glide towards the ritornelle:

The Rondeau ends.

'A brief encounter', slight it's true, No hint of Passion, Heaven or Hell Upsets the rhythm—just as well That with a bow (of course to you) The Rondeau ends.

P.M.

The Rondeau? Bah! An exercise—

That's all it ever is. Who tries To write within its rigid shape Can rarely, if at all, escape The need to cheat and improvise, To torture, twist and cut to size Some poor defenseless phrase in guise Of 'poetry'. I call it rape.

The Rondeau? Bah !

(But who am I to criticise, Who now in competition vies To copy this confounded jape In some vague hope that 1 might scrape A mention, or perhaps a prize?) The Rondeau? Bah!

Tony Robinson

The Deuce, to do his Bad Deed for The day, made one competitor Think up a ghastly torment—viz: This present competition. 'Tis A thing I would, but won't ignore.

The rondeau is a fearful bore, It's lame, pedestrian and poor.

It has no flow of soul, and is

The deuce to do.

It's prone to cause the yawn or snore.

Observe the nodding reader, or If not asleep, then look at his Two glassy eyes and lifeless phiz.

It's also (as I said before) The deuce to do.

Anthony Jarvis A rondeau preys on the supply Of rhymes required to satisfy

A pattern, by the French designed, Of verses quaintly intertwined, Wherein poetic pitfalls lie.

My M use has left me high and dry,

For She has other fish to fry, While on my overburdened mind A rondeau preys.

But since I chose to cast the die, Then obviously I must try To reach the end; though in this kind Of verse no pleasure can I find.

So tell me, Critic, why should I A rondeau praise?

Nancy Perry