In Competition No. 3289, you were invited to provide an extract from a politically correct version of a work by an unreconstructed male novelist or poet.

An honourable mention to Alex Steelsmith for his reimagining of ‘Song of Myself’ by Walt Whitman, celebrated poet but also author of the long-forgotten Manly Health and Training in which he prescribes a meat-only diet, naked sunbathing and the avoidance of the draining company of women. Here is a snippet:

My pronouns are They, Them and Theirs.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

And to David Shields, who recasts Philip Larkin’s ‘High Windows’ for 21st-century sensibilities:

When I see two young people
And guess s/he/they is/are conducting
A meaningful relationship
With him/her/them, and taking

Responsible precautions…

Deedee McCarthy, Chris O’Carroll, Carolyn Beckingham and Bob Johnston also shone, but the £30 prize goes to the authors of the entries printed below.

The reaper’s privacy is prime
So I won’t stop and stare. I must
Remember that my happy gaze
Can be interpreted as lust.

It’s no concern of mine what words
The worker chooses for a song;
To walk on smartly by is best;
To stand and stare is clearly wrong.

Of course I should be guided by
What health and safety rules dictate.
It puts the reaper’s life at risk
To publicise her lonely state.

So I will try to be discreet
Lest I stir people’s ill intent.
To toil alone securely is
A labourer’s entitlement.

Frank McDonald/Wordsworth

It started, as triggering episodes often did, in Sir Walter Bullivant’s Whitehall office. ‘What do you know of the competing factions in the East, Hannay?’ he asked. I told him I could distinguish creed from ethnicity and had passed all requisite units of Unconscious Bias training. Sir Walter instructed me to blind hire a diverse team to get out there and empathically evaluate a German-sponsored uprising his network of informants – socially marginalised operatives all – had identified. My team, identity-fluid linguist Sandy Arbuthnot and John Scantlebury Blenkiron, a gustatorily divergent American, would deepen the cultural reach of the escapade through the addition of outsider perspectives. We set out separately so as to suppress the natural inclination to nepotism. To spare the reader the anxiety of unresolved tension, I must immediately reassure her we located, infiltrated and neutered the uprising, Arbuthnot becoming its leader, Greenmantle. A mental wellbeing catch-up duly followed.

Adrian Fry/John Buchan

O Tania! When I think of your brain, the moist convolution of its neural networks throbbing silently in the globe of your skull like the tremors of a uniquely powerful intelligence, do I listen to the coarse promptings of my prick? A thousand times no! My vision is filled with transcendent miracles of advancement of 51 per cent of humanity, I shake hands with Walt Whitman over the septic corpse of male braggartry. My consciousness burns with fantastic, impossible memories of the Seneca Falls Convention, with the militant striving of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with images of de Beauvoir no longer Sartre’s whore, with proud women liberated from hungry wombs craving the molten discharge of my seed.

O Tania! We have abolished the poisonous American dream that fosters the cult of money and possessions. Let us now smash the bastions of phallocracy. After all, a prick is only a prick.

Basil Ransome-Davies/Henry Miller’

Bond opened the door cautiously. His eyes swept swiftly round the room, checking for the exits. Reassured, he moved forward and took his place at a table.

The whist drive was already in progress.

Bond took in the couples around him. Experienced players who knew the game and wouldn’t be afraid to take risks. He flipped open a new box of Maltesers and popped one into his mouth. It tasted good: sweet and clean and fresh as the honeycomb exploded in his mouth.

An organiser came over. ‘Would you care for a drink, Mr Bond?’ she asked.

Bond nodded. ‘Orangina and lemonade. Served at room temperature with a cube of ice and a paper parasol. Shaken not stirred.’

As she walked away, Bond noticed the slightest suggestion of a limp. Venus with a tiny flaw. Probably happened when she’d been rescuing a child during the Blitz. There were heroes everywhere.

J.C.H. Mounsey/Ian Fleming

My partner has the usual two eyes
and lips that edge her mouth (that’s what lips do).
She has a functioning body (no surprise)
and hair upon her head (like me and you).
I’ve never thought of her in floral terms –
she is, in every sense, a human being –
nor felt the need to bring up dirt and germs:
she cleans, with eco-products; she’s far-seeing.
She speaks her mind and we discuss world news
and, equally, debate what’s on TV,
diverse religions, their opposing views.
She’s rooted in today’s reality.
Ours is a modern, liberal, woke affair,
respectful of each other as a pair.

D.A. Prince/Shakespeare

No. 3292: Speaker’s corner

You are invited to provide a poem to mark the death of Betty Boothroyd. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 22 March.