Competition
Spectator Competition: Budding poets
Comp. 3441 invited you to use the opening of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Trees’ as a starting point for your own.…
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: Hope stings
Competition 3438 was inspired by the 1986 film Clockwise, in which John Cleese is constantly impeded in his attempt to…
Spectator Competition: Wintry look
Competition 3437 invited you to submit a passage or poem incorporating the line ‘Why, what’s the matter, That you have…
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: Veg out
Competition 3435 invited you to write a poem that included Wendy Cope’s immortal line ‘A happier cabbage you never did…
Spectator Competition: I’ll take Manhattan
Competition 3434 was prompted by the 400th anniversary of the retrospectively controversial purchase of Manhattan island by the Dutchman Peter…
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: Alternative facts
Competition 3432 invited you to submit a passage containing some AI-style ‘hallucinations’ (it would be just as anthropomorphic to call…
Spectator Competition: Elementary
For Competition 3431, you were invited to submit a passage in which Sherlock Holmes solves one of the great mysteries…
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: Write Christmas
Competition 3429 invited you to tell the story of the Nativity in the style of a well-known writer. There were…
Spectator Competition: Frankenpoem
Comp. 3428 was inspired by Rose Ruane’s Larkin/Shelley mash-up (many thanks to Bill Greenwell for flagging this up): They Oz…
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: A letter from Jane
Competition 3425 was prompted by Gill Hornby, a biographer of Jane Austen, telling an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival…
Spectator Competition: Bad advice
Comp. 3423 invited you to submit a passage about a command or suggestion from literature being taken too literally. I…
Spectator Competition: Daylight saving
For Competition 3422 you were invited to submit a poem or passage on the theme of ‘daylight saving’. In a…
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: Virtue-signalling
For Competition 3420 you were invited to submit a poem or short story incorporating that sentence of Emerson’s: ‘The louder…
Spectator Competition: what day is it?
For Comp 3419 you were invited to write a poem to mark National Vodka Day (4 October) or another spurious…
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: Forget me not
Comp. 3417 invited you to write an elegy to a piece of obsolete technology. This prompted a deluge of very…
