Cover: Photo (c) J. G. Betts. Holed ('Thirled') Rock Thurlestone Devon
Here comes LUPO 52, the last issue of 2020, a challenging year for many reasons in all the countries where LUPO’s contributors and readers are to be found, so it is to be hoped that its laugh-lines will provide some light relief amid the locked down gloom. Among its varied offerings are beetles, cars, cats, Christmas presents, Cinderella, dogs, double dactyls, double titles, horticulture, pangolins, penguins, pigeons, poets bad or ego-bound, robot vacuums, sergeants, snow, a sinister soutien-gorge, Superman, Twinkies, valentines and witches together with much else, including M*rm*t*. You have been warned.
Laid out in the three normal Intervals, plus a special one off the peg, are pieces by word-turners old and new, namely J. M. Allen, Damian Balassone, Eve Best, Jerome Betts, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Michael R. Burch, Steven Clayman, Glo Curl, Pat D’Amico, Joan M. Forde, Martin Elster, Hank Greenspan, Julia Griffin, Max Gutmann, Elizabeth Horrocks, Peter Johnson, Jim King, Peggy Landsman, L.A. Mereoie, Alan Millichip, Anna Nolan, Chris O’Carroll, Martin Parker, Nell Prince, Tom Schmidt, Alex Steelsmith, Ian Stuart, Mark Totterdell, Liza McAlister Williams and John Wood.
Trailed by their characteristic lingering aroma of compost and leaf mould, the winners of Competition 51 will have little difficulty maintaining that social distance of two metres from their queue companions. Congratulations to John Beaton, Jane Blanchard, Martin Elster, Gillian Ewing, Katie Mallett, Bruce McGuffin, Mike Mesterton-Gibbons, Alan Millichip and D.A. Prince.
Congratulations also, incidentally, to the evergreen George Simmers and Snakeskin, which has reached its 25th anniversary with its December issue, making it almost twice LUPO’s age, and possibly the oldest continuously published verse webzine in the world.
As in September, LUPO is again pleased to welcome the work of a dewy dozen of newcomers, that is to say J. M. Allen, Alexander Blustin, Dan Campion, Joan M. Forde, Hank Greenspan, Dominic James, Jim King, Nell Prince, Judie Rae, Carla Sarett, Ian Stuart and John Wood.
With thanks to Susan Jarvis Bryant and Heather Simpson for photographs and LUPO’s warm seasonal wishes to all its readers and contributors still dodging the protein-spiked pest for the merriest Christmas they can manage, as well as a virus-free unvirtual 2021.
