Competition
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: Feverish
Competition 3459 invited you to submit a passage that lavishly depicted a heatwave. The entries accumulated languorously, replete with detail…
Spectator Competition: Resignation
Comp. 3458 invited you to submit a fictional character’s stepping-down letter. A new light was cast on various figures, from…
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: Semiquincentennial
Comp. 3456 invited you to mark 250 years since the birth of the United States with a poem. There were…
Spectator Competition: In the field
Comp. 3455 invited you to supply some local response (in prose or poetry) to the absence of Glastonbury Festival, which…
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: The secret is…
Competition 3453 invited you to describe a new, infallible personal regime that promised to make one healthy, rich and irresistible.…
Spectator Competition: All kicking off
Competition 3452 invited you to write an ode to the World Cup. The entries flew in and many of them…
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: Shrink away
Comp. 3449 invited you to psychoanalyse, in the manner of Freud/Jung etc, a 2026 phenomenon. In a small but accomplished…
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: Ouch
Competition 3447 invited you to outdo Kingsley Amis in detailing a hang-over from hell, but in the style of another…
Spectator Competition: Critics amass
Comp. 3446 invited you to write a critic’s review of a fictional pub or restaurant or hotel etc. I bit…
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: Take heed
Comp. 3444 invited you to submit a Hilaire Belloc-style cautionary tale for our times. This one was last set in…
Spectator Competition: Punning wild
Comp. 3443 was inspired by Brian Bilston’s ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’ which begins: She blew her fusilli, my pretty penne,…
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: 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…
