Spectator Competition: Hard times
For Competition 3466 you were invited to submit a short story with a topical theme written in the style of…
Spectator Competition: Name dropping
For Competition 3463 you were invited to submit an acrostic poem in the style of a well-known poet, the first…
Spectator Competition: Cringe benefits
For Competition 3461 you were asked to submit toe-curling analogies.This invitation produced a stream of entries that were glorious in…
Spectator Competition: As you liken it
For Competition 3460 you were invited to write a sonnet beginning ‘Shall I compare thee to a [trisyllable of your…
Spectator Competition: Elemental
For Competition 3457 you were invited to submit a weather forecast in verse. There were nods to Shakespeare, Eliot, Hardy…
Spectator Competition: Four play
For Competition 3454 you were invited to encapsulate a well-known poem in four lines. I found this entertaining parlour game…
Spectator Competition: Acrostic
For Competition 3451 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure in which the…
Spectator Competition: One way
For Competition 3450 you were invited to submit a short story written in words of one syllable. This challenge produced…
Spectator Competition: Laughter lines
For Competition 3448 you were invited to supply a joke in verse form.Apologies for an ambiguous brief; I was actually…
Spectator Competition: Bring up the bodies
For Competition 3445 you were invited to provide a sonnet to a previously overlooked body part.In a stellar week –…
Spectator Competition: Budding poets
For Competition 3442 you were invited to supply the opening of a memoir that would discourage the reader from reading…
Spectator Competition: No thanks
For Competition 3440 you were invited to supply a diplomatic thank-you letter for an unwanted gift. According to a recent…
Spectator Competition: The borrowers
For Competition 3439 you were invited to build an undiscovered poem around a phrase lifted from an earlier poet. The…
Spectator Competition: Love is…
For Competition 3436 you were invited to submit a poem whose first line is ‘O my love is like [fill…
Spectator Competition: Dear John
For Competition 3443 you were invited to submit a dear John letter in the style of a well-known writer. The…
Spectator Competition: Forward thinking
For Competition 3430 you were invited to write a rhyming prophecy for 2026. Joe Houlihan’s closing couplet encapsulates the tenor…
Spectator Competition: Lines of beauty
For Competition 3427 you were invited to write a paean on a place traditionally considered to be ugly. In an…
Spectator Competition: Right to reply
For Competition 3421 you were invited to submit a reply from Slough to offset Betjeman’s rude lines on the subject.…
Spectator Competition: Trivial pursuits
For Competition 3418 you were invited to provide a pompous leading article on a trivial subject. The ubiquity of ‘Hi’…
Spectator Competition: Seeing the light
For Competition 3415 you were invited to submit a lost poem by a well-known poet which makes us see him…
Spectator Competition: Ad it up
For Competition 3414 you were invited to provide an extract from a well-known literary work rewritten to include appropriate product…
Spectator Competition: Hard lines
For Competition 3412 you were invited to submit a poem about the struggle of writing a poem.This challenge drew a…
Spectator Competition: Family matters
For Competition 3409 you were invited to submit parental advice courtesy of famous writers. Kurt Vonnegut’s father’s advice to his…
Spectator Competition: Problematic
For Competition 3406 you were invited to cast a well-known fictional or non-fictional character, living or dead, in the role…
