What Mastery of Poetastery!
For our latest competition, the auspicious 13th, we invited readers from around the world to submit three short poems, in three particular styles: the limerick, the clerihew, and the rhyming quatrain. And weโre delighted to say, you leapt to the task: we had entries from thirteen countries across five continents!
Half a dozen judges assembled in what they thought would be a place for quiet and careful contemplation: a far-flung village, high up in the mountains of Rhaetia. The Graubรผnden region of East Switzerland seemed to offer the perfect balance of rustic beauty and necessary amenities. So we travelled out to the location to the meet the man. (We had thought that the place was run by some Australian called “Davo”, but on closer inspection there was in fact no apostrophe visible in the atlas.)
Unfortunately, however, the press attention over in Davos was of a scale far larger than the touring retinue of Antigone editors is used to: it wasnโt just the usual gaggle of Netflix docufilmers, suits representing Big Philology, the #darkacademia online influencers, and Emily Maitlis. No, every man and his dog had descended on, or rather ascended to, the village. After some crossed wires, and several in retrospect ill-judged speeches to camera, we attempted to give to the assembled crowd of reporters, we decided to ignore the hubbub and hunker down in the chalet.
It took two days and five nights to reach a judgment (the slopes werenโt going to ski themselves) but in the end we got there. So now, for your delectation, we present a glorious medley โ first, of those who won the prizes in each of our categories; then, of those entrants who really should have won a prize too in a better-ordered world; and then, of those individual epigrams which amused the judges as a whole. We received hundreds of poems this time round, so congratulations to all who made the list, and consolations to the many who did not. The team really appreciated the effort of every single one of you who had the courage and the ingenuity to craft and submit an entry!
In what follows, all trios of poems are presented in the order Limerick: Clerihew : Quatrain, unless otherwise stated. (It might, on reflection, only be stated once.)
Winners
Over-18 Category
First Prize (ยฃ300): Nick Thomas, Oxford, UK
The ancient philosopher Zeno
Had the silliest paradox we know.
An arrow that dives
But never arrives
Wouldn’t pass for a joke in the Beano.
Plato
Never ate a potato.
But a tuber you have to peel
Would not have been his ideal.
Pythagoras’s soul in transmigration
Might well have taken on a form heroic โ
Or formed the basis of a cold collation,
And ended up inside a hungry Stoic.
Second Prize (ยฃ200): Armand DโAngour, Oxford, UK
The stern Stoic doctrines of Zeno
Led people to scoff โWhat does he know?
Our guide Epicurus
Says pleasure should lure us โ
So hereโs to good friends and good vino!โ
The Monist Melissus
Thought the world of his missus.
He had lots of fun
Telling people heโd found The One.
โIf a fig is a fig,โ pondered Plato,
And a trough is the thing they call โtroughโ,
Is Tomato the Form, or โTom-ay-toโ?
By Zeusโletโs just call it all off.โ
Third Prize (ยฃ100): Robert Schechter, New York, USA
The ancient philosopher Zeno
said, โOddly enough, I can see no
way you can prove
that an object can move,โ
but the Greeks sighed and said, โWhat does HE know?โ
Heraclitus,
please invite us
to swim in your river again. Once was nice,
but I long to swim in that same river twice!
Plato, the wisest man in Greece,
once cautioned Aristotle,
โItโs fun to drink with Socrates,
but don’t drink from his bottle.โ
18-and-under Category
First Prize (ยฃ250): Ronin Reeve, Shabbington, Bucks, UK (aged 9)
There was once an emperor named Nero
To a deluded few, he was a hero.
He tried and he tried
To not be despised
But faltered and became a zero.
Careful and cruel Domitian,
He finished the Colosseum.
He was bad and the people cried.
Werenโt they joyous when he died!
The self-declared foe of Neptune, Caligula
Made his horse Incitatus consul, such hilarity!
Little boots, a ruler very irregular,
Was removed from statues following his barbarity.
Second Prize (ยฃ150): Arne Niklasson, London, UK (aged 12)
(Quatrain, Clerihew, Limerick)
On rhetoric the Sophists were here to educate,
With all the tricks needed to win a debate.
They knew a good argument was irresistible โ
and that meant the truth could be twistable
But Plato said โno!โ
A lie is your foe
Truth is objective
And words should reflect this.
Aristotle declared โGuys! Stop the chaos!
We can settle this because I am the boss.
Rhetoric needs rules โ
Don’t be such fools!
Just use ethos, logos and pathos.
Third Prize (ยฃ75): Tom Gibson, Bucks, UK (aged 16)
Diogenes was not a well man,
He loved his life in a can,
It was really a barrel,
He lacked fine apparel,
For on luxuries he placed a ban.
Here lies Plato the great,
No realm of forms in his current state,
Just lowered and stooped with a frown,
With Socratesโ every word written down.
Come ye Aristotle master of man,
For knowledge so great has thee by Zeus,
But torn apart by Italyโs ruffian,
Oh well, poison comedy rings the truce.
Very Honourable Mentions
Dumb Ways to Die in the (Ancient) West
There once was a playwright named Aeschylus*
Whose skull proved to be thin and eggshell-ish:
A skydiving turtle
From an eagleโs claws hurtled
And crushed the Greek tragedy specialist.
*US pronunciation [edd.]
Hot-headed Empedocles
Called himself god emphatically.
โLava canโt kill me,โ he boasted.
Then he roasted.
Old Chrysippus, the Stoic bigwig,
Should have saved his breath:
He saw a donkey eating figs
And laughed himself to death.
Laurence Pekari, Peabody, MA, USA
* * *
Three Dim Emperors
Of Constantine Palaeologus,
The title is perfectly bogus.
His subjects were Greek,
Militarily weak,
And completely unpractised with togas.
Though the life of Silbannacus
Might be labelled opacus
By thwarted historians,
At least it seems he wasnโt murdered by Praetorians.
Last of the West, young Romulus Augustulus
Ruled for ten months. Was he stout, was he slim?
Was he winsome and smooth, or cromulous and pustulous?
Nobody knows; nor what happened to him.
Julia Griffin, Statesboro, GA, USA
* * *
There once was a soldier named Caesar,
Who was famed as a great woman pleaser,
But things got less linear,
When he went to Bithynia,
And found heโd become the receiver.
Julius Caesar Augustus, nรฉe Tiberius,
Was known as frugal, dull and serious,
But Suetonius claims he became quite care-free,
When he ditched the racket of Rome for the shores of Capri.
From the bitter blood of civil war,
To the shining streets of civil law,
Augustus raised Rome from smouldโring ashes,
While he razed the freedoms of its masses.
Meg Challis, Melbourne, Australia
* * *
Mathematophilia
The conundrum of Being encumbers
Poor Pythagoras, wrecking his slumbers.
Some omnipotent pills
Take the edge off his ills:
Soothing sleep is delivered by Numb(-)ers.
Zeno of Elea
Was moved by an idea.
Achilles, pleased by the proof he brought us,
Has given up trying to catch the tortoise.
Thrasymachus applied to Platoโs school.
When he showed up, the master blocked his path,
Turned him away: โYou advocate misrule,
And, what is worse, you donโt know any math.โ
Philip Kitcher, New York, USA
* * *
Diogenes made an odd sight,
curled up in his barrel at night.
When he met Alexander,
he said, โDonโt just stand there,
get yourself out of my light.โ
Aristotle
wrote a helluva lotle
including a treatise
on the development of the fetus.
Democritus found it rather cheery
to contemplate atomic theory:
all nature created and destroyed
by particles whirling in the Void.
Ruth Holzer, Potomac Falls, VA, USA
* * *
Tiberius Claudius Nฤro
โs perversions still chill to the marrow:
Suetonius Carusโ
vile tales may still scar us
โ or is my own mind just too narrow?
4: scar ] scare editores veteres Britannici
โBootsieโ the emperor, Gaius Caligula
never improved his animula vagula.
His favโrite puella, whenever he kissed her,
demanding much more, shouted โStop! Iโm your sister!โ
In more ways than one ฮฮทฯฯฮฟฮบฮฟฮฏฯฮทฯ,
yet hoping for marital freedom,
Nero said with a totally straight face
โWould you like to try out my new boat, Mum?โ
Michael Hendry, Staunton, VA, USA
* * *
You’ll know Heraclitusโ name โ
From his lips pearls of wisdom once came:
โEverything moves,
Nothing stays,โ which just proves
That the same river isn’t the same.
Parmenides of Elea
Said, โMy friends, I gotta tell ya โ
If you think change is more than an illusion
Youโre under a delusion!โ
You must admit old Zeno’s smart;
It’s paradoxical but still he’s
Somehow proved that, with a start,
A tortoise could outrun Achilles!
Elizabeth Manning, Malvern, Worcesterhire, UK
* * *
The Emperor Heliogabalus
Had habits most foul and quite fabulous.
Should he meet a nice fella,
Heโd say, โHi, Iโm Ella,
Now why donโt you come take a grab at us.โ
To his chagrin, Caligula
Could not surmount the stigma a
Hack gossip like Suetonius
Wove salacious and erroneous.
Beard a-bristle, Julian tried
In Neoplatonic hullabaloo
To turn around the Christian tide
But he had no follow through.
Andrew Wood, Seaview, New Zealand
* * *
โTwas Zeno who founded the Stoa
Poikile, and made it a goer.
His fist he would clasp
With a confident grasp:
Katalepsis, the mark of the knower.
Cleanthes of Assos
Scratched notes on shells in Zenoโs classes;
Than others of cash shorter,
He toiled a night job, carting water.
Chrysippus of Soli was the third,
The Stoaโs next Scholarch:
Of cosmic logos, he inferred,
We share a godly spark.
Judith Stove, Sydney, Australia
* * *
There once was a Roman named Nero
Who fancied himself quite the hero
But he was playing the liar
While Rome played with fire
And his talent for singing? Sub-zero.
Julius Caesar,
Big plebeian pleaser,
Could have used a more truculent wife.
Surely a battleaxe would have saved his life.
Marcus Aurelius learned death in his mind
And steeled his soul for every season.
He said, โThough myriad despisers I find,
I refuse to provide them with reason.โ
Eden Cowles, Denver, CO, USA
* * *
Said old Epictetus, โIโll bet
we could all of us be happy yet
if we were not ambitious
to gain all our wishes,
and started to want what we get.โ
Parmenides
believed that manโs sensory faculties
lead to conclusions false and unfruitful โ
especially when heโs taken a snootful.
For Plato once my love was warm,
but now itโs reached a sad disjunction.
I always felt he loved my form
but had his doubts about my function.
Gail White, Breaux Bridge, LA, USA
The Best of the Rest!
And now hereโs a medley of some our favourite other entries, divided between Limerick, Clerihew, and finally Quatrain:
LIMERICKS
In Marcus Aureliusโ eyes
Pain doesn’t exist for the wise,
So heโs sat on a bed
With a nail in his head โ
A decision he ought to revise.
Mark Willington, St Ives, UK
A philosopher gave some advice:
โYou cannot step in the same river twice.โ
But I think Heraclitus
Just said that to spite us
(It’s a common philosopher’s vice).
Anna Jackson, Tijuana, Mexico
Romulus Augustus was last
Of all Roman emperors of past.
But a barbarian came,
Odoacer his name,
So his ten months sure ended fast.
Tom de Marsillac, Putney, London, UK (under 18)
There once was an Athenian, Pausanias,
Who spoke with a memorable mania.
He didnโt like women
But all thatโs forgiven:
He led us to Venus Urania.
Maya Toman, Lawton, MI, USA
The stern and austere Pertinax
Attempted to fill the treasuryโs cracks.
He trimmed guardsmenโs gold,
A policy bold โ
They slew him for nine weeks of cutbacks.
Peter Hulse, Sheffield, UK
Pythagoras was the first one
To call himself โlover of wisdomโ.
He never ate beans
(They have souls like beings)
And he founded a ฯฯฮฟฮปฮฎ in Croton.
Caroline Lawrence, London, UK
Hermogenes couldnโt withstand
The assault that young Cratylus planned,
But in Socrates rushed
And to Cratylus, hushed,
Was left no resort but his hand.
Mary Ann Lai, Modena, Italy
There once was a man called Nero,
And, dear me, was he no hero.
He was a liar by name,
Playing the lyre, his game,
His reign, a borderline zero.
Edmund Dhanowa, Blackheath, London, UK
Anaximander pondered creation,
but he found it beyond speculation,
so saying, โTo hell with itโ,
he called it indefinite โ
scholars thank him for mass publication.
Eoin Treanor, Oxford, UK
Vespasian was feeling quite odd
when mortality started to prod,
but he hailed his demise
with more wit than surprise:
โI think I’m becoming a god.โ
Susan McLean, Iowa City, IA, USA
There once was an atheist Melian,
Who denied even the Delian.
When he danced out the rites,
and denounced sacred sights,
the Athenians committed to killinโ him.
Dominic Laverick, Edinburgh, UK
There once was a thinker named Plato
Who worked under Socratesโ say-so.
Plato wrote of his death
And his mentorโs last breath
Which inspired the stoical Cato.
Sasha Gardner, London, UK
CLERIHEWS
Under Romulus Augustulus,
The Empire went bustulus.
Latinate sloth
Made Italy go Goth.
Eric Hutchinson, Jonesville, MI, USA
Macrinus
Never even saw Romeโs genius.
The first equestrian to wear the crown,
He lost it before he reached the town.
Peter Hulse, Sheffield, UK
Temporary emperor Marcus Carus
Fancied himself Alexander Magnus,
Till Jupiterโs thunderbolt ended the boast
and turned him and his horse to toast.
J.S. Ubhi, UK
Murderous Nero
Was not a hero.
In his garden at night
He burned Christians for light.
Halina Henry, New York, USA (aged 14)
โAll Flows away,โ said the dark Heraclitus,
โNothing is stable,โ the thought terrified us,
So we defamed him, โExpire in Excrement,โ
Little we knew, posterity accepted it!
Luc Hagopian, Whidbey Island, WA, USA
Gaius Caesar Caligula
Said, โI donโt prefer arugula.
But my horse, Incitatus, may find it useful โ
Itโs a meal that befits a consul.โ
Morgan Kim, Houston, TX, USA (aged 17)
The pre-Socratic Empedocles,
Gave us four elements and their properties.
He thought that love and strife gave our lives might
But gave no thought to the dangers of height.
Beverly Ward, Oxford, UK
Volcano-jumper and poet, Empedocles
Was also a maker of philosophical hypotheses:
Fire, air, water, and earth were the roots of life,
Eternally mixed and separated by love and strife.
Maura Harrison, Fredericksburg, VA, USA
Englandโs William of Ockham
Wished universals would be forgotten.
Bill walked with the Peripatetic,
But his razorโs result was far from mimetic.
Adam Bishop, Festus, MO, USA
QUATRAINS
Paradox, scared-of-clocks Zeno of Elea
proved the queer notion that motionโs illusion.
Though you would think this would cause mass hysteria,
people moved on โ much to his own confusion.
Elijah Blumov, Evanston, IL, USA
Plato wrote what Socrates said,
as if by osmosis,
or metempsychosis,
depending on whether or not he was dead.
Patrick A. Singer, Centennial, CO, USA
I’ve heard of Heraclitus
He says that โpanta rheiโ.
I wish he would enlighten us
Of what he means to say!
Roy Calcutt, Thame, Oxford, UK
Carus, Caesar by murder,
campaigning awaited his fall,
but lightning took care of his slaughter;
to nature not carus at allโฆ
Leo Salvatore, Chicago, IL, USA
Aneurysms to many a bishop you brought
And almost undid the Temple’s fate later
What Julian the Apostate thought
I forgot, you’d have to read his “Beard-hater”!
Loand Baxhuku, Prishtina, Kosovo
For love Diotima gave us a ladder
of which the highest rung is wisdom.
She taught Socrates all about the matter
as he demonstrates in his Symposium.
Mary Spencer, Paris, France
In Suetoniusโ masterwork
Domitian was no hero.
Itโs hard to know the bigger jerk:
Domitian or Nero.
Glenn Wright, Anchorage, AK, USA
Diels set Orpheus first,
hymning Dionysus and Zeus,
of the pre-Socratics heโs hardly the worst,
if admittedly a little abstruse.
Dominic Laverick, Edinburgh, UK
They tell us the fifth (thatโs Nero) was slave
to his pleasures, with no time to save
the City, alight, so it burned through the night
and created some space for the Golden House site.
Lilian Thompson, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, UK
The emperor Augustus was no prude,
But when he heard what Ovid has to say
He thought it cautious, wise, politic, shrewd,
To send the pornographic bard away.
Conor Kelly, Western Shore, Nova Scotia, Canada
What fun! It’s always a pleasant surprise to be reminded how many people are prepared to play, when the world let’s them. Our next competition to come in late spring. Take care until then!
