In Competition 2813 you were invited to submit an application in verse, from the poet of your choice, for the position of poet laureate.

There were robust bids from poets who were passed over for the laureateship on account of their questionable politics — Pope, for example, and Milton — as well as from those that made the grade: Betjeman, Hughes, Wordsworth and Nahum Tate all threw their hat in the ring.