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  • The Oldie

    TESSA CASTRO

    Sep 22, 2021 2 minutes

    N COMPETITION No 271, you were invited to write a poem with the title It was an inconvenient match between so many good entries and so little space to print the winners. Katie Mallett gave a recognisable account of stopping in for a delivery: ‘And so you pick the time, the week, the day / When this will happen, time and equipment: ‘The ticket for my flight’s online, / The printer that I need is mine.’ Adrian Fry had a quirkier conceit: ‘Mama can’t use the convenience store, / Convenience being a Sin.’ D A Prince, contemplating the difficulty of preserving valuable architectural details of public lavatories, concluded: ‘Urinals have no value in Art’s eyes, / Although Marcel Duchamp thought otherwise.’ From a station on the Talyllyn Railway, Angela Brown sent a tale of automation and espionage. Commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of that truly convenient resource going to Michael R Burch of Tennessee.

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