COMPETITION

Singing the people

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1742 you were invit- ed to write an anti-popular poem begin- ning with the same four words with which Roy Campbell began his.

'Bid them wash their faces and keep their teeth clean,' said that despiser of the mob, Coriolanus, whom he also called 'the mutable, rank-scented many' and 'the beast with many heads'. He might also have called them 'a monster whom the drunken gods have maimed', but that was Campbell imitating Shakespeare. Even Orwell, that champion of the people, maintained that the British working-class smelled unpleas- antly, though my own memories of the Thirties bring back the whiff of carbolic soap rather than body odour. The best- smelling poor in the world are probably the Chinese — Stevenson noted this on his emigrant train crossing the United States. I am reliably informed that this is partly because they rarely eat dairy products. Nowadays, as you made clear, popular offence is usually aural, not oral.

The prizewinners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Aberlour Single Malt whisky goes to Roger Woddis, who has been knocking at the door of the drink for a long time. I sing the people, bless their cotton socks, Saddled with soaps, brain-damaged by the box, Believing in the trash the tabloids sell, Our feudal past and what the stars foretell.

I sing the people, crawling to the great, Thick as two planks, content to stand and wait, Contemptuous of foreign food and Frogs, Hating their children, loving cats and dogs.

I sing the people, dreaming of the pools, Queueing for hours to gawp at pampered fools; Unmoved by news of economic gloom, Their sole concern is who is bonking whom.

I sing the people, bigoted and blind

To all the brightest hopes of humankind; What do they know of Shakespeare, Shelley, Donne, Whose lips move slowly when they read the Sun?

(Roger Woddis) I sing the people, those whose talent lies In being matey more than being wise, The steadfastness of whose devoted hearts Ensures their tastes will always top the charts; The ones who, offered Salzburg, choose instead To go to Little-England-on-the-Med, And who, when spoilt for choice at their departure, Will always spurn an Atwood for an Archer; Who, though the record shop stocks Mozart's

Don,

Routinely exit clutching Elton John; And, with a faith beyond all human reason, Acclaim Bruce Forsyth to another season. Their favour gave us ketchup crisps to eat,

And thirty years of Coronation Street.

Salute them then; they merit our applause Who have endured Such torture for their cause. (Noel Petty) I sing the people, all of them, The short, the tall, the fat, The feckless, undeserving poor, The proletariat.

The middle classes too I sing, For I cannot forget The way they voted Thatcher in, And hanker for her yet. The rulers of this sorry land, The Lords and Commons too, Are quite as bad as all the rest, No use to me or you.

I sing the people, if I must, But in a minor key.

May global warning soon occur, And drown them in the sea.

(John Sweetman) I sing the people, those nonentities Who queue in superstores with quantities Of frozen fish, sliced bread and processed cheese - We have them with us as a dog hasfleas.

They sweat unstintingly and cough their way, Indoors or out, through sixty fags a day.

They throng the Costas for unhealthy tans, Guzzling cheap wine or lager straight from cans.

They have their own religion with its rules: Worship the betting shop and football pools.

They falsify their unemployment claims, Bestow upon their young romantic names Like Darren, Tracey, Kylie, Jason, Judd, And their philosophy is clear as mud.

To find a heaven on earth is what they try - The nearest they will get, I fear, is Sky.

(Alanna Blake) I sing the people tested in the flame Of war now half a century ago, A people sadly somehow not the same As that great island race we used to know.

Just as they were content in ancient Rome With bread and circuses (see Juvenal), Today it's tea and telly, plus a gnome As household god upon the garden wall.

In speech four-letter words predominate, They think of only sex and football pOols, Brought up to worship violence and hate — Strange products of our comprehensive schools.

I sing the people, but don't get me wrong,

The great unwashed are not my cup of tea: Odi profanum vulgus, so my song

Is not a paean, but a threnody. (Peter Hadley)

No. 1745: Jenny

`Jenny kissed me when we met' is the open- ing of a faMous 'poem by Leigh Hunt. Substituting another word or words (Taint: ed' or 'hit me', for example) for 'kissed me' in the first line, and folloWing the Metre and rhyme scheme but not the rhyme words of the original, please produce a new `Jenny' poem. Entries to 'Competition No. 1745' by 11 September.