Self-portrait

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 2345 you were invited to supply a self-portrait by a well-known poet in his or her style.

The historical poem which best fits the bill is surely the one that begins, 'I am the Poet Davies, William,/ I sin without a blush or blink:/ I am a man that lives to eat/ I am a man that lives to drink./ My face is large, my lips are thick,/ My skin is coarse and black almost. . . . ' Commendations to Gerard Benson (Stevie Smith) and Alarm Blake (Roger McGough) and a sad finger wagged at Frank McDonald (Robert Bums) who overstepped the limit by two lines. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the Cobra Premium beer goes to Hugh King.

1, William Topaz McGonagall,

Now set before you his personal chronicle. I was born in 1825. It is fortunate for posterity that I survive.

This occurred in Edinburgh, a very fine town, And the birthplace of many others of great renown. At first, for it is natural in babies, I was small. Later, after about 20 years, I grew to be middling tall. From my days as a weaver I shaved my whiskers and

beard,

For their getting caught in the loom is greatly to be feared. I have handsome cheekbones, which are often seen In persons like myself whose artistic sense is keen. My curling locks flow down on both sides of my head, On which I often place a hat, usually black but

sometimes brown instead.

My voice is rich and musical and I once played Macbeth. Although affronted by how Macduff brought about my death.

Hugh King Thomas Hardy

At sink of sun on Stinsforcl ridge, On Stinsford ridge, Eyes westward turned to Casterbridge, I view myself in former times, Keen-eyed, fair-faced and willow-thin With fiddle tucked beneath my chin, Not doubting I should woo and win The world with sparkling rhymes.

No more aglow, but hardier now,

Aye, hardier now,

greenwood Face weathered like the eenwood bough, I view one forged by storm and squall,

By blizzard blown and tempest tossed, Heart frozen hard as winter frost,

turned on love, long

Eyes coldly tu lost,

And caring not at all. Alan Millard Ted Hughes In its nature the mirror falsifies, Silently stripping away a dimension. Through glass there is no seeing: Seeing is in the head.

Yet the image is there, conjured, A shadow of some substance; Lines catching the dark, Bone hard against skin.

At the crown, hair bent grass, The sides beyond kembing; Eyes in pot ghyll sockets At stone drop's depth.

And set above the ploughshare chin — A trireme's jutted beak — Lips tight as a suture Admitting nothing.

W.J. Webster There's precious little truth in Caro Lamb's Remark — 'mad, bad and dangerous to know'.

The good Princess of Parallelograms Used phrases equally malapropos. Neither perceived their Corsair had a ham's Propensity for putting on a show: That world-warped, guilt-damned man of mystery — The Byronic hero — wasn't the true me.

To find me shun The Giaour, turn to my later Satiric verse. Don Juan to begin And end with: there's the hater and fierce baiter Of tyrants, turncoats, toadying knaves who win Indulgence; there's the pointed-wit deflater Of puffed-up cant. My heart and soul are in Ottawa rima, setting up effectual Shock-rhymes like 'intellectual' with hen-pecked you all'.

Ray Kelley You would figure a guy with rimless eyeglasses and heavy eyebrows To be writing verses for highbrows, A poet more in the tradition of Yeats, Eliot, Pound and Valery Than one given to lighthearted raillery.

That's how nine out of ten people would interpret my kind of face.

Well, it just ain't the case.

I may look like the kind of straight, reliable guy fit to inhabit the governor's mansion, But I'm hell on scansion.

And when you get right down to it my formal structure is more anarchic Than Petrarchic.

But you have to admit that when it comes to rhyming I'm no slattern.

It's just that I'd rather drink cocktails in Manhattan, Or for that matter in Washington, Savannah or Manassas Than scale Parnassus, Though you wouldn't guess that from the suit, worn not bashfully But Ogden Nashfully.

G.M. Davis Alfred, Lord Tennyson In antique hat and windblown cloak I stare majestically down, To discompose with sombre frown The gawping gaze of lesser folk.

My public likes this bardic dress, The soup-stained beard and matted hair, Which furnish a befitting air Of picturesque untidiness.

My varied verses deftly gauge The taste for lyric or lament, Or deeds heroic that present A pattern for our mighty age.

My head has long been laurel-crowned; When I recite, the women shake: My hope in writing was to make The elevated seem profound.

Godfir,v Bullard

No. 2348: Preposterous pet J.B. Morton once began a poem, 'Ibsen had a badger .... ' You are invited to supply a poem involving a famous person and an unlikely pet. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to 'Competition No. 2348' by 1 July.