November 18 2010
Quills Poised?
Peter Valentine is a poet with a twist. The American lyricist invented the genre known as crossword poems, a three-stanza affair that relies on a particular puzzle for its language.
And this weekend – to help boost Peter’s renewed blog of crossword poetry – you’re all invited to compose your own crossword poem based on the DA puzzle – of Friday, or Saturday, depending on your metropolis. (This week’s non-themed puzzle offers the ideal fuel for the exercise.)
The art-form is illustrated on Peter’s site, but let me spell out the genre’s guidelines here. Stanza by stanza, a crossword poem comprises:
Stanza 1 – all words must be borrowed from the Across clues. (Note well, people – clues NOT the answers.)
Stanza 2 – all words from the Down clues.
Stanza 3 – or the Answer Stanza – is made up words from the solution grid.
To read Creepy Binoculars (my own crossword poem based on the Master Grid in Puzzled), plus Peter’s rich canon of chequered verse, trawl the inventor’s blog. To create your own – based on this week’s DA – just post your effort in the Comment section, with a full Spoiler Alert implied. The pick of the output will be paraded, no less, in the Valentine vehicle. Happy decrypting – and rescripting!
Comments
Mr X — 19 November at 09:21AM
XXX SPOILER ALERT XXX
Any rules on stanza length or composition. I'm gussing that there's no rhyming requirements as stanza 3 only appears to have the dubious options of TNT/anarchy/lea
DA — 19 November at 09:37AM
Line and length is freeform, while rhyming is for clever clogs only, much like yourself Mr X.
Though there's no escaping the metaphysical profundity of the soul's ragged distillation - or SMH Crossword 19216 for that matter.
Just have fun with it. See what art we fudge.
Mr X — 20 November at 03:21PM
Interesting - despte the absence of a theme, the crossword ended up providing the basis of a free verse ode to global geopolitical instability:
Rebuild a major impasse !
Control a larger vesel into an ocean rig.
Blast a foul fallout.
Extremes made disorder !
Ditch a lanced boat.
Hit a crook radiator discharge.
Anarchy!
Taiwanese sub crunches precious catamaran.
Act - TNT off Chernobyl desert
Mr X — 20 November at 03:24PM
Now if there's ever a maritime disaster involving a pleasure craft in the China Seas or a mysterious explosion in the radioactive Ukraine badlands, the Friday DA can claim Nostradamus status.
DA — 20 November at 04:20PM
You heard it here first...
Well done X. (I wonder if these rare doggerels will find their place in the poetic landscape? Seems akin to painting with a depleted palette, which has its own pleasures.)
Sam — 20 November at 05:32PM
A narrow judge repulsed
Every audience type
- balcony fallout
Seekers of an underground play
Found painful fault
- in copyright displays
Tiptoe, precious, one-way
Crunches stand-up act
- boot-off hobby
dg — 21 November at 12:15PM
This is very rough
Almost plastered on moonshine
I put up with fouled creep
On every impasse I prevailed
Play the fool, kid
Next to street routine
Untold fortune displays finger
Stand one way
Steer precious anarchy
Act Subway chef
DA — 21 November at 04:21PM
Whole lot harder than I'd imagined. Can only think the genre is kinder to the US style of crossword, particularly with a deeper reservoir of solution words.
My poem touches on delinquency:
Ubiquitous Anarchy
A major creep to deal a larger street score.
One found next to her bed, maybe,
Foul character seeking control.
Juvenile drinks whiskey, painful to leave party. The fool found by seekers in a ditch.
One tip: desert babyish way.
dg — 21 November at 08:34PM
Dear score I hear
Advice I rent
A blast discussed last during fallout
Vitamin fuel partly in
Discharge a sped-up fool
Painful hit lodging next to Parliament Street
Tiptoe up desert way
Boot guttersnipe act
One crunches algebraic anarchy table hobby
JD — 22 November at 09:18AM
Taking a recent television phenomena as inspiration:
Light!
Audience!
Judge!
Race to score.
Whiz kid in the kitchen.
Juvenile displays of game play.
Submits meals.
Tournament ends
One precious babyish hobby chef.
DA — 22 November at 10:04AM
JD - that's extraordinary. Best Doggerel At Show, I reckon.
Love your use of 'whiz kid', the whole masterful theme, with a sweet, sweet payoff. If this was a Storm, you just owned it.