Wordsworth

Gabe Atkinson

The challenge was to come up with a short poem about one of the following people: Henry Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Bernard Freyberg, Che Guevara or Marie Curie. Nozz Fletcher, Waikawa: Henry Ford/ Made cars his workers could afford./So, now the world’s one vast car park/And jammed commuters don’t get home till dark. Judy Day, Auckland: The idiom “to go for a burton”/Is somewhat dated, but I’m certain/T’was tailor-made for Lovely Liz/ When Richard got her in a tizz. David Wort, Bay of Plenty: When I see a luminous dial/I think of Marie and I smile./ The radium she so loved to handle/Made her glow in the dark like a candle./Hide-and-seek was her favourite game/And we were drawn like moths to the flame. Tony Clemow, Kamo: Bernard never did fry burgers/Nor died he from Asperger’s./We remember rearguard surges/out of theatres such as Crete/where Kiwis proved no easy meat – /the bleeders rendered toothless/ when Bernard’s remnants hoofed it. Helen Yuretich, Northland: Marie Curie, queen of science/Her brain was quite enormous./Her husband’s, too, and their alliance/Continues to inform us. Trudy Havard, Masterton: “Henry Ford,”/ the paint guys prayed,/“Can we use/a few more shades?” Bridget Burdett, Hamilton: Wonderful uranium/Disaster for her cranium/ Squeezing truth from science fiction/ Curie’s life: a contradiction. But Hamilton’s Yvonne Moosberger is the winner: Violet eyes, baths of milk,/ Necklets of jewels, skin like silk,/Jealousy, feuds, ebony braids,/Fawning beau, obsequious maids,/Perfectly cast from first to last scene:/Elizabeth Taylor as Egyptian queen. For the next contest, send us an amusing message you’d like to find in a fortune cookie but probably never will. You may submit either a line of prose or a rhyming couplet. Entries, for the prize below, close at noon on Thursday, November 28.

Submissions: wordsworth@listener.co.nz or Wordsworth, NZ Listener, Private Bag 92512, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141. Please include your address. Entries may be edited for sense or space reasons.