Comp. 3426 was inspired by Stephen Vincent Benét’s 1927 poem ‘American Names’ (see Charles Moore’s Notes, 1 November):

I have fallen in love with American names,

The sharp names that never get fat,

The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,

The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,

Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

    You were invited to submit poems to do with place names. It was hard to whittle down the very good entries (too many runners-up to single any out) though certain places kept cropping up so I tried to avoid too much repetition. The £25 vouchers go to the following.

Morning! After downing booze,

Have a fryup, come the dawn –

Chopwell, chipping. You’ll enthuse:

Ham and eigg, or even quorn –

Rustle up another bangor,

Greet the brand new, sober day-o!

A burgar hill, you want a treat –

Smother all in salt and mayo.

Baconsthorpe is what you need:

Sit beside the river – Chew.

Foodie crackpot! Fill with greed –

Breakfast’s greasby, just for you.

Hungerford? Of course, my dear!

Topography’s a living language –

After breakfast, have a beer,

Or butterton a second sandwich.

Bill Greenwell

I will arise and go now, and go to Pity Me

Until I find somewhere to outquirk that –

Wheelbarrow Town, perhaps (pop. 23)

Or maybe Buckler’s Hard or Symonds Yat.

I shall hie me hence to Once Brewed

And live on moonshine hooch,

Or seek a Gallic mode and mood

In Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Surely in Kingston Bagpuize

I could live in some decorum,

While sheer charisma must suffuse

Whitchurch Canonicorum.

Or I’ll leave Waverley Station,

To another novel go,

With its mark of exclamation:

I am coming, Westward Ho!!

David Shields

Place names found in Somerset

Paint pictures in the mind

Suggesting, should you visit them,

The kind of place you’d find:

Grey, gruesome names like Gurney Slade

And pithy names like Pylle,

Noble names like Wellington

Or Keinton Mandeville.

Weird, wicked names like Wookey Hole

And watery names like Wells,

Or names like Charlton Mackrell

With its hint of fishy smells.

But best you never visit

Since it would be such a shame

If what you pictured in your mind

Was nothing like its name.

Alan Millard

If I should die, think only this of me:

I want nothing interred at Wounded Knee;

Chop me up and do your worst;

But please respect my wishes first.

Dispatch my parts across the land:

To Fingringhoe, perhaps a hand;

Great Snoring seems a fitting site

For a nose that foghorned through the night.

Brain to Crackpot; paunch to Beer

(Not Droop – I’d like to make that clear);

Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned:

So bury my buttocks at Brokenwind.

Then speed, bonny boat, across the sea

With everything else I used to be;

Farewell cruel world, goodbye to all that:

And bury what’s left in Orkney’s Twatt.

Richard Warren

For thirty thousand years of man

It flowed with quiet aplomb.

Quite happily unknown to most.

Not now. It’s called The Somme.

A lot of quiet backwaters

Were happy to remain

Obscure. Columbine, Sandy Hook.

Aberfan or Dunblane.

The magic mystic orient

Has damaged placenames, too.

Hiroshima, of course. My Lai,

Or Dien-Bien-Phu.

Dylan Thomas got the point

And wisely chose to call

His story-town Llareggub:

Famous for bugger all.

Brian Murdoch

We can’t remember Adlestrop,

We lost the plot in Splatt,

Our GPS won’t work down south,

So there’s no hope of Twatt.

We passed a painful Crapstone,

Peeved in Peebles, soaked in Bath,

Dissed Diss, went nuts in Knutsford,

Battled Battle’s beaten path.

We had a ball in Rugby,

Cheesed off Cheddar, savoured Rye,

Saw Nantwich, Prestwich, Sandwich,

But we couldn’t fathom Wye.

We made haste touring Hastings,

Squeezed ourselves through Butthole Lane,

Don’t sing of happy highways, please,

We’re sodding lost again.

Janine Beacham

No. 3429: Write christmas

You’re invited to tell the story of the nativity in the style of a well-known writer (150 words max). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 1 December. The early deadline is for the Christmas schedule.