I'm not sure if I understand this one. Any ideas?

Competition No. 2574: Anagrammatic
You are invited to take a poem, or the fragment of a poem (please specify), and anagrammatise it to make a new poem (16 lines maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2574’‚ by 4 December or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.

Sam I'm guessing but I think you take the words of an existing poem and rearrange them to make a totally new work.

Moon the cat, diddle the jumped cow
over-diddle the hay and the fiddle.

I guess.

Removed my idiocy after reading John's post--Boy, was I stupid!
I got anagram and acrostic switched around somehow --please disregard.


[This message has been edited by fivefootone (edited November 25, 2008).]

Jim, you could be right, and that would be relatively easy. But it might mean take the letters of the poem, and that would be considerably rickier. And if you say it can't be done, then look at this, which says it HAS been done. I haven't checked it but someone might like to try.

The Little Boy and the Old Man
Shel Silverstein

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

The Tot and the Elder
Olin Foblioso & Billy Foblioso

The tiny tot went: "When I eat I mess up."
The elder replied: "O, that makes two of us."
"I soil myself," went the tot with shame
And the elder added: "O, I do the same."
On the tot told him: "I sob a lot."
"O, not only you," answered gramps to the tot.
"And what's totally bad," the tiny tot told,
"I think mom and dad don't love me at all."
While grandpa simply, pitiably smiled,
then said: "O, I understand, my child."

I think that would be more of an acrostic Donna . I see what you're getting at John, and you could well be right, but again, I wonder, using the letters alone I think would be easier, using words takes quite a bit of rearranging to make any sort of sense;


Go there, build a cabin to live in, is free-
a small bean, a clay hive, a rise
and nine wattles in rows I will have made
for the honey. The bee, and the bee alone
will now go to a loud glade.

Where's Willard Espy when we need him?



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited November 25, 2008).]

I have bathed
the icy lumps
the pies
of sweat

that were in
the deli ox
and which
you were flavoring

for our
erect baby son
so we scold
give me a break

This is not quite right yet as checking back and forth with the original is driving me nuts. But it's a start, and I have a couple of days to work on it.

John, I haven't checked out the Silverstein/Fablioso totally but a quick run over tells me the Fablioso isn't a precise anagram of the letters in the Silverstein.

I think you have to see if it works for the whole thing, Jim. One feels there ought to be a programme that would do this. In David Crystal's excellent book 'Language Play' there is what he calls a Transpositional Poem, a version of Wordsworth's 'Upon Westminster Bridge' by someone called Wayne Carlson. It's on page 79 0f my Penguin Edition and begins

A city is lying asleep in the dull morning

I have emailed lucy of the Spectator to rule on this, butwhether she will email me back I don't know.

Apropos transitional poems John I'm sure you've read Wendy Cope's Wordsworth..

I have the tablets from on High. Lucy says it's the letters option. Migod! Jim, I don't know Wendy's Wordsworth. How can I have missed it. Point me at it.

Great! That's going to be sooo easy..

Anyway, John it's
A Nursery Rhyme
as it might have been written by William Wordsworth

The skylark and the jay sang loud and long,
The sun was calm and bright, the air was sweet,

you probably remember it so I'll continue for those who don't know it..

When all at once I heard above the throng
Of jocund birds a single plaintive bleat.

And, turning, saw, as one sees in a dream,
It was a Sheep had broke the moorland peace
With his sad cry, a creature who did seem
The blackest thing that ever wore a fleece.

I walked towards him on the stony track
And, pausing for a while between two crags,
I asked him, 'Have you wool upon your back?'
Thus he bespeak, 'Enough to fill three bags.'

Most courtesly, in measued tones, he told
Who would receive each bag and where they dwelt;
And oft, now years have passed and I am old,
I recollect with joy that inky pelt.

-Wendy Cope.

But folks, does it matter whether letters or words are used? The same letters are employed in any event.

So my Yeats would be a legit entry.

William Blake's "The Tyger"

Grubby herring, gritty gent
In the hogs-for-fetish tent:
What a horny retailed norm!
A fully rummy, farfetched storm!

That's all I have patience for at the moment--I may add more stanzas later. Anyway, I'm sure this will inspire some of you to do better than I have. Using http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ is the only way to attempt this exercise without wasting too much of your life.

Julie Stoner