Accidental Verse

Competitors were presented with two prose lines which had accidentally assumed a pentametric verse form, and invited to cotnpose a sonnet, or up to 14 lines of blank verse or heroics, beginning either : 'The pilchard, parent of the true sardine' or 'Tractors and turbines in the Promised Land.'

AFTER setting this task I was beset by some remorse. I looked for only facetious or satirical lines, and how could one expect the grandiose march of blank verse or the meditative, amatory, or elegiac quality of the sonnet to be turned to such uses? The heroic couplet, no doubt, would be the favoured form. But it did not turn out so. Far from needing the Wordsworthian adjuration, 'Scorn not the sonnet,' over half the entrants chose that medium, either in the Petrarchan or the Shakespearean form. Next came the heroics (in which no one achieved the requisite Popean balance and antithesis); and only ten bold spirits ven- tured to tackle the appalling difficulties of blank verse.

Coming to distribution by subject, the pilchard drew nearly three times as many entries as the tractors. I had expected some diatribes on the sickly, tomato-soused pil- chard that appeared on our plates all too often during rationing; but there was little of this hatred shown. However, Vera Mouse's last line ran : I hate the fish myself ! They make me sick!

Some play was made with the sardine's alleged propensity for getting 'canned' or 'oiled.' A. D. Bennett Jones produced (in lovely calligraphy, incidentally) a remark- able tour de force in the shape of a sonnet making liberal use of alliteration.

I was surprised to find much good serious verse, especially in the tractors division. Many competitors took 'the Promised Land' not as Israel but as some dreadful auto- matised Airstrip No. 1 of an Orwellian future. I did not (as anticipated) get a David slinging . hand-grenades at Goliath. Several promising entries were discarded because of otiose anti-Arab propaganda, inappropriate on this peaceful page.

Prizes of two guineas each go to W. K. Holmes, Rhoda Tuck Pook and Selwyn Turner. In an exciting photo-finish, C. L. Lyall was disqualified (alas!) for rhyming 'dial' with 'pile.' Others thundering up the straight, close behind, were (alphabetically) G. J. Blundell, J. H. Burns, Sarah Evans, J. A. Lindon, M. M. M., and Gerald Summers.

PRIZES

(W. K. HOLMES)

The pilchard, parent of the true sardine; Concise enlightenment for those who wish To study the affinities of fish—

Whatever may to each their kinship mean. Our icthyologists are humbly mute About the implications of the fact.

When sire meets offspring, how do they react? With cold indifference or some sea-salute? We praise the salmon as the fishes' king; Do piscine class-distinctions then prevail? Are such as herring, haddock, skate and ling, Though in the swim, low in the social scale? Enough that we approve the partnerships Achieved by fish, unspecified, and chips.

(RHODA TUCK POOK)

The pilchard, parent of the true sardine, Engrossed in anguished impotence, beholds Her silv'ry brood snatched by finality. No martyred stag nor pinned and quivering moth

Can speak the mute inconsequence of death More clear than these, so frail for his embrace. If they so soon must mate oblivion, Better the tide had swirled them 'thwart the bar Blotting them into anonymity—

A clean and rigorous end! But seized by man, Incontinent in lust for little lives.

They sweep into a breathless element Unto th' incarcerating metal doomed.

(SELWYN TURNER)

Turbines and tractors in the Promised Land And petrol-pumps where Moses struck the rock; The barb-wire straightly fences in the flock And herds (attested) graze the erstwhile sand: With milk and honey tin containers stock, Their labels printed to proclaim the brand; Dam Jordan's waters on a scale more grand, Erect TV-masts, Babel Tower to mock.

And still, beyond your final concrete walls, The desert lies in silence, under stars Your street-lights dim, until that day be born Shall see the downfall of your garish halls; When from you nought your last destruction bars, And all your works the sun and wind shall scorn.

COMMENDED

(J. H. BURNS)

The pilchard, parent of the true sardine, Dwells n, in his aqueous world, aloof, with- drawn,

spurns the worldly wisdom of the prawn, Seeking a sapience that is more serene. With inward-looking eye and lofty mien, What though the jaws of death—and dogfish —yawn,

He looks toward some better, brighter dawn Beyond this sad, sublunar, watery scene.

Not so his sardine-scion, who, intent On piscine pleasure, sets his course for sin, Risking thereby the perilous ascent To earth and to the men that dwell therein With power to inflict the final punishment— The net's close meshes and the tight-packed tin.