Competition
Spectator Competition: Bearing up
For Competition 3474, in the week of Winnie the Pooh’s centenary, you were invited to submit a passage in which…
Spectator Competition: The doubtful ghost
For Comp. 3473 (and Halloween) you were invited to submit ambiguous ghost stories in which the ‘presence’ may or may…
Spectator Competition: Bring up the bodies
In Competition 3472 you were invited to submit a sonnet inspired by a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature. These, in…
Spectator Competition: Bayeux mania
For Competition 3471 you were invited to submit a poem about the Bayeux Tapestry’s visit to the British Museum. There…
Spectator Competition: Jolie laide
For Competition 3470, you were invited to submit a very pretty lyric poem about something ugly or unpleasant. Purely as…
Spectator Competition: Bad romance
Competition 3469 invited you to submit seriously misguided love poems. This proved a popular challenge but the standard was patchy.…
Spectator Competition: The great renaming
Comp. 3468 took as its jumping-off point Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario and invited you to submit a poem proposing…
Spectator Competition: Back to it
Comp. 3467 invited you to submit a passage in the style of a classic school story to mark the start…
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: Down the middle
Comp. 3465 invited you to write a centre-aligned poem, with a hidden message running down the middle. The brief was…
Spectator Competition: Ods against
For this Odyssey-inspired Competition 3464 you were invited to submit a passage or poem in which a modern man (or…
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: Slave to the ’rithm
Competition 3462 invited you to submit a short story in which the protagonist lets an algorithm take charge of their…
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…
