By request, I'm putting up a new double dactyl challenge. Only this time, no higgledy-piggledy cop-outs. Your nonsense word must have some bearing on the subject of the poem. Here's my example, written when my youngest grandson showed up in the wrong century.

Y2K Nursery Rhyme

Calendar-schmalendar!
Harrison Taylor, boy;
special delivery,
ready or not!

Downloaded yesterday,
neo-millennial.
Doctors don't always know
diddly squat.

Carol

LOLOLOL. In a prior incarnation, I produced several Y2K conferences for the financial services industry. At one point I probably knew more about the state of bank's Y2K efforts than most people in the country. This brought back those days to me. Technical-schmentical, this cracked me up. And trust me--the banks didn't know much more at first either.

Tom

Winningly-Sinningly
Vladimir Nabokov
Felt that H. Humbert would
Surely compare

Well with the tortoise, a
Serio-comical
Hero, who finished a-
head of the hare.

At the Dance Club

Hopefully-Dopefully
Christopher W.
Heads for the corner and
Stands there inert

Thinking the Beautiful
Neoplatonically
Ought to approach him and
Teach him to flirt.


And, since I think the one I did for Alan might have gotten lost on the thread I put it on, I'm going to repeat it here:

Editor-Predator
Alan __ Sullivan
Rarely concedes that a
Poem is done,

Tolerates verse that is
Heterometrical--
Otherwise right of At
Tila the Hun.

(This was inspired by the Ashcroft thread. Alan didn't supply his middle initial -- I just hope it isn't 'W'.)

[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited December 13, 2001).]

<u>Allow me to introduce myself</u>

Beatily-feetily,
Pua K. Sandabar,
drums in a dither and
bats in my hair,

tryin’ my damnedest to
rhythmo-phonetically
slip whacky verse past the
critics out there.


(....not very successfully, I might add!
You folks are good!)

---Pua

Melody-Swellody
Johann Sebastian
Bach was a harpsichord
Master we know;

Surely in light of his
Philoprogenitive
Exploits was also of
Organ a pro.

Euphony-Shmeuphony
Schoenberg, atonalist,
Found his recordings of
Mozart a tonic

Either he tired of his
Hypermodernity,
Or his new speakers were
Dodecaphonic.


George Eliot

Moralist Schmoralist
Author of Middlemarch
Marian Evans, though
Seemingly tame,

Lived with a man who was
Never her husband and,
Psuedo-eponymous,
Took his first name.


And one for a former roommate who used to go clubbing with me:

Willius-Nellius
Sarah and Christopher
Frequented Discos of
Scandalous mention

Dancing as thousands of
Masculine Mannequins
Neuro-erotically
Paid no attention.



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited December 13, 2001).]

Carrying Carol's philosophy of the first line a step further, why not make it non-nonsensical, but an integral part of the verse?

Here are a few from a series of satirical portraits I've done:


Hollywood cover girl
Starlet O'Plasticene
turned to a surgeon to
boost her appeal;
now she's a knockout and
oxymoronically
begs for a chance to have
parts that are real.

Oh what a narcissist!
Beauregard Vanity's
egocentricity's
frightfully grim.
Could he breed simply by
parthenogenesis,
soon the whole world would be
swarming with him!

"Send me your dollars," says
Reverend Grubbalot,
tacitly hawking sal-
vation for sale.
What a damn shame that his
insensitivity,
preying on weakness, won't
land him in jail.


Jan

The form for the DD is strict about masculine rhymes on lines 4 and 8. For those times when feminine rhymes would be useful, we can switch to the McWhirtle. I had heard about the McWhirtle from Kenn Nesbit, the 'Rhymesaurus' softwear creator, so I started trying to find out more about it. I even tried John Mella, who said he was familiar with the form, but had none at hand as examples. I finally reached the author himself after much effort.


Dear Ann Landers
---------------------------

I'm really disgusted
With Myrtle McWhirtle,
The out-of-work bimbo
Residing next door.

She knows where to find
Herself honest employment
But chooses instead to be
Neighborhood whore.


Named for the example above, the "McWhirtle' is a relatively new verse form, created by Bruce Newling in 1989. It is much like a double dactyl, but each stanza opens with an iambus, followed by seven anapests. The metrical feet are allowed to rove over from one line to
the next. The last words of each stanza rhyme; rhymes elsewhere are optional.

To me, it seems much superior to the DD, both easier to compose and more enjoyable to read, especially when the author (Bruce again) can mix in other rhymes:


A scholar who lives in
The village of Cadder
Delivered a talk from
A rickety ladder.

So now he discourses
On physical forces
That clearly have made him
Much wiser if sadder.


Note here, with the feminine rhymes, the stanzas can also be said to be amphibrachic dimeter, as well as one iamb and seven (roving) anapests, with a trailing syllable the end.

Mr. Newling is a retired professor of geography who occasionally taught basic writing and English as a Second Language during his career. His light verse has appeared in such anthologies as 'How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry' (Viking, 1990), and 'The Random House Treasury of Light Verse' (Random House, 1995). He resides in New Brunswick, NJ
(USA).

I just had to try one myself, of course:

Said Quintus Horatius,
"Dear me, and good gracious!"
It seems that we rocked him
And terribly shocked him:

He found us translating
His adage on dating,
'Carpe diem', misstating
His tip, 'carpe noctem'.


First try wrong, as usual. Can anyone spot my slip?

You startle me greatly, old man! I read Hollander's description in Rhyme's Reason and the one in the Hollander and Hecht book -- either I missed this requirement or I forgot it.
Guess it's time to go check out the H and H book again and look.