Spectator competition winners: Philip Larkin’s poems rewritten by other poets

In Competition No. 3266, you were invited to reimagine one of Philip Larkin’s poems in the style of a poet of your choice.

This challenge was a nod to the centenary last month of the poet’s birth, the response to which – though the Philip Larkin Society was upbeat: ‘so much is happening!’ – seemed somewhat muted. So the enthusiastic response to this invitation was heartening.

Congratulations and commiserations to unlucky losers Terry Parsons, Kit Wittering, Paul Freeman, Ann Drysdale, Atar Hadari and Joshua Kulseth. The winning entries earn their authors £30. Leading the way is Bill Greenwell’s John Betjeman, who described his friend Larkin as ‘tenderly observant’.

“I am a busy ambulance. I scoot through midday traffic:

Behind my quiet curtains, you may think the action’s graphic, 

But actually, old fruit, I am as private as the clergy,

And one day I’ll be round to yours, my siren sounding dirge-y. 

 

When I take in a patient, and no matter what locality, 

The watchers-on feel fragile and imagine their mortality: 

A scarlet blanket, double doors, the body stashed within, 

I scare the living daylights out of kith as well as kin. 

 

It took ten generations and haphazard genes to make you? 

Inside my room for fifteen minutes, I could swiftly break you. 

Observe my high-speed journeys – all motorists must cower! – 

For Death, old bean, will see you off, no matter what the hour. 

Bill Greenwell/John Betjeman’s ‘Ambulances’

“It’s no go the train ride for this flush of Whitsun weddings, 

And it’s no go this rush to town for their blushing, fumbled beddings. 

It’s no go the drink consumed and the organ’s last crescendo 

And the mothers’ hats and the uncle’s speech packed full of innuendo. 

And it’s no go the hullabaloo and all the lovey dovey, 

The nylon gloves, the dads in suits and the bridesmaids’ giggling covey. 

And it’s no go something borrowed teamed with new and old and blue 

For many couplings come apart before their first night’s through. 

And bliss will not be guaranteed by horseshoe shaped confetti. 

Aunt Mabel thought she’d found a prince but woke to find a yeti. 

While the Bishop’s wife woke up next day with love bites on her bum 

And a firm resolve to sleep alone from then till kingdom come. 

So it’s no go bloody Cupid letting fly with showers of arrows 

For those they hit may quickly find how soon love’s prospect narrows. 

And it’s no go expecting him to find your perfect match 

When his bow’s more like a scatter-gun and his aim’s not up to scratch. 

Martin Parker/Louis MacNeice’s ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ 

What lullabies for these awake near Hessle? 

Only the monstrous silence of the dark. 

Only the curtain edge’s restless rustle 

Can hide the hangman prowling Pearson Park. 

No musical brocade, no prayer nor bell, 

Nor plausible philosophies of death 

Will have the slightest magic to dispel 

the anaesthetic of their final breath. 

What candles may be lit to save them all? 

Not in false candlelight but in work done 

Shall grave forgetfulness be bravely won. 

The sky, as white as clay, shall be their pall; 

Their crouching telephones shall briefly mourn; 

And to each house the postmen come at dawn. 

Nick MacKinnon/Wilfred Owen’s ‘Aubade’

“Despite what new leaves seem to mean, 

The trees are mourners dressed in green. 

Springtime deceives our ears and eyes, 

Whispering comfortable lies 

 

About rebirth. Inside the wood 

Curl rings which, rightly understood, 

Remind us every fatal year 

An end is swiftly drawing near. 

 

Rustling briefly for a season, 

Trees conspire against our reason. 

Death is a thing of yesterday, 

New life is now, they strive to say 

Chris O’Carroll/A.E. Housman’s ‘The Trees’

“day dawn winters spring with why, what for 

must heavy hooded eyelids lift to let 

days’ should behappy times drown sleep sweet dreams 

and end (as dreary is to cheery) night 

with heavy hours of wakefulness ahead 

long-stretched as next year’s christmas day must seem 

to toddlers when the trimmings and the tree 

are packed away: so why do days exist? 

each day, (as silence is to singing) stays 

tongue-tied, dumb dead as death, a voiceless void 

as answerless as infants’ endless whys; 

days dawn because, because they’re where we live; 

the doctor delves the depths, the parson probes 

and prays to find what for and why we have 

day after day to fill and so fulfil 

our time in search of whoknowswhat or why. 

Alan Millard/e.e. cummings’s ‘Days’

No. 3269: the queen’s favourite

There has been much talk in the media about HM Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite things. You are invited to submit a poem on that subject. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 28 September.