Strict Sonnets

A prize of six guineas was offered for a sonnet using the rhymes given as'illustration of this verse form by the Concise Oxford Dictionary (e.g., pig bat cat wig jig hat rat fig; lie red sob die bed rob or lie red die bed pie wed).

THERE was a bumper entry for this brute Of a test. Brute, because entrants couldn't know by what standards I would judge. And I didn't know myself, until I had read the first 200 sonnets offered, that I was going to prefer sense (anything that added up) to poetic diction that sounded good but meant little. Therefore my first three (gory) prizes. And E. G. Moore's gets the £3 because of all the entries only his could, 1 think, just conceivably have been accepted by a dazed editor (of Heaven- knowswhat sentimental publication), in this century, as an In Memoriam from a heart- rent Nanny with a taste for verse. Mollie Dillon's comes next, because of her sixth and eighth lines, which (I hope) I shall remember for the rest of my life. I might have put Charles Russell's first but for that crash, as disbelief becomes unsuspended, on the last word. How 'rob' floored them, entry after entry! Hats off to Stephanie Gifford for the last line, then, of her sonnet entitled (useful things, titles, for setting the scene and mood!) 'The Forsaken Teddy- Girl' :

Oh Rob, come back, come back, I love you, Rob!

And to four other poets for brave last lines on the other rhyme, e.g.: 'I blame,' he mused, 'that steak and kidney pie We always serve on Early Closings (Wed)' N. F. THOMPSON

Prince Rainier and his wedding came in eight times, Lord Emsworth three times, and a witch's stockpot (pig, cat, rat, fig, etc.) many times. Adrienne Gascoigne found good special meanings from architecture and building for pig, bat, cat, and die, and tells me that pie is a book of liturgy. Hers was a highly commended entry. There were

three ingenious entries with split words. e.g., J. A. Lindon's Lady, your charms bewilder me! What pig mentation in those matchless eyes? What bat tlements of teeth!

and so on, through some distinctly odd endearments, to . . . Ring then, bells (our ding of wed)!

And I liked R. Marriott's cricketing sonnet, entitled The Angry Batsman' (he had been given out LBW). The last line was

Were any umpires' parents ever wed?

Commended entrants : Judith Tosh, D. L. L. Clarke (three offerings), Lakon, Iris St. Hill Mousley, Jennifer Plowman, whose 'In Defence of Pleasure' ended happily with : I think four potted larks and partridge pie Shall be my dowry, if I come to wed. H. B. McCaskie (a crack at Russia, 'They say that Stalin was a rooting pig ...'), R. Kennard Davis, Lord Dunsany, H. R. Douglas, Trooper Jones and Rhoda Tuck Pook. Here are the prize-winners then : Three guineas to E. G. Moore; two guineas to Mollie Dillon; one guinea to Charles Russell.

PRIZES To A DEAD CHILD (E. 0. MOORE)

That day he watched the gardener feed the pig, The time he lost his loved new cricket bat, And that gay morning when he saw the cat Make hay of our old neighbour's precious wig! And then, his dancing that preposterous jig Upon his little sister's new sun hat,

Shaking it as a spaniel shakes a rat.

That face he pulled when first he ate a fig. . . .

And now we see him all so silent lie, The cruel mark upon his face so red, After that one, astonished, bitter sob. His stumbling footsteps as he turned to die Aimed towards the useless comfort of his bed, As if life gave only for death to rob.

One hears no more the grunting of the Pig„; Low in the lanes now swoops the soundless bal,: And hark! is that the miaowling of a cat! Madame, retiring, puts aside her wig. But in the barn the farm-hands dance a jig' The shepherd fans the milkmaid with her ha" And flying feet disturb a startled rat, While Corydon tempts Phyllis with a fig. Under the moon the fields enchanted lie: d But in the house the murderer's knife Is rei, Whose stroke cut short the terror-stricken sov Wrung from his victim just about to die: Stripped of her jewels sags across the bed The wigless lady whom he killed to rob.

MIXED UP BOY (CHARLES RUSSELL)

I chivved him, and he scivamed just like a pig' And Ernie didn't half give him a bat- You see we can't no longer get the cat From that old geezer up there in his wig, And if he'd died we'd never dance the jig With rope for necktie and a hood for hat- I kicked his face in when he called me rat, It went a lovely purple, like a fig. My Mum asked where I'd been. I told a She knew, because my knuckles were all re' She sat down with a silly sort of sob, And talked wet, how she wished that she ceeld die. hed. I 'went and washed, and lay down on mY "„-id And thought about the next time we we'

rob.