Competition

Spectator competition winners: the pleasures of bad poetry

26 September 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3167 you were invited to submit a rhymed poem that is leadenly prosaic in tone and content.…

Spectator competition winners: poems in praise of naked cyclists

19 September 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3166 you were invited to supply a poem either celebrating or lamenting the cancellation of Philadelphia’s annual…

Spectator competition winners: Would you give Anne Boleyn a job?

12 September 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3165 you were invited to supply a job reference for a well-known public figure, past or present,…

Spectator competition winners: patchwork poetry

5 September 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3164 you were invited to submit a poem in which each line comes from a different well-known…

Paradise Lost in four lines

29 August 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3163 you were invited to submit well-known poems encapsulated in four lines. Now that the internet has…

Tutti-bam! Frutti-boom! Musical double dactyls

22 August 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3162 you were invited to submit double dactyls on stars of popular or classical music. Fans of…

Spectator competition winners: Keatsian sonnets

15 August 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3161 you were invited to supply a sonnet with certain rhyme words to be used in a…

Spectator competition winners: killer short stories

8 August 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3160 you were invited to supply a short story whose opening sentence is ‘I have no idea…

Spectator competition winners: Poems without the letter ‘e’

1 August 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3159 you were invited to supply a poem that does not contain the letter ‘e’. This fiendish…

Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer meets Spock

25 July 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3158 you were invited to supply an extract describing a well-known fictional detective who finds themselves catapulted…

T.S. Eliot goes to Glastonbury

18 July 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3157 you were invited to describe a visit to Glastonbury or Glyndebourne in the style of an…

Poems about schadenfreude

11 July 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3156 you were invited to supply a piece of verse or prose on the subject of schadenfreude,…

Poems about picnics

4 July 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3155 you were invited to supply a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’. This challenge was prompted by a…

‘Merrie sing Rishi!’: variations on ‘Sumer is icumen in’

27 June 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3154 you were invited to supply your own variations on the medieval round ‘Sumer is icumen in’.…

‘Your guts will form a stinky pool’: Roald Dahl explains Covid-19 to children

20 June 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3153 you were invited to recruit a well-known children’s writer to explain Covid-19 to their young audience.…

The pleasure and pain of staycations

13 June 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3152 you were invited to supply a poem about the joys — or otherwise — of the…

Famous writers get to grips with DIY

6 June 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3151 you were invited to imagine famous authors reflecting on their struggles with DIY. Highlights in a…

Herculean sonnets

30 May 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3150 you were invited to submit a sonnet describing one of the labours of Hercules. This challenge…

‘Around the House in 80 Days’ and other titles for lockdown

23 May 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3149 you were invited to tweak an existing book or poem title for lockdown and provide an…

Authors making sneaky appearances in their own novels

16 May 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3148 you were asked to imagine what the result might have been had a well-known writer slipped…

How famous writers do social isolation

9 May 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3147 you were invited to submit tips on social isolation in the style of a well-known writer.…

Spectator competition winners: poems about the goats of Llandudno

2 May 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3146 you were invited to submit a poem about the goats of Llandudno, who recently ran amok…

Competition winners: Clerihews on Spectator contributors

25 April 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3145, to mark the 10,000th issue of The Spectator, you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets,…

Spectator competition winners: Pangrams in six lines

18 April 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3144 you were invited to submit a poem, six lines at most, containing all the letters of…

Spectator competition winners: Love in the Time of Covid-19

11 April 2020 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3143, a nod to García Márquez’s 1985 novel, you were invited to submit a short story entitled…