Style Conversational Week 1231: Tanka from the memories
The Style Invitational Empress looks at the week’s new contest and
results
A coywolf, the subject of a runner-up TankaWanka in a previous contest.
(ForestWander.com/via Wikipedia)
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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June 8, 2017
Ooh, I’m feeling so poetic today, just in time for this week’s Style
Invitational TankaWanka contest, Week 1231.
That’s because I’m writing this from West Chester University in the
Philadelphia suburbs, where I’m attending the 22nd annual West Chester
Poetry Conference for the third time. As I did last year, I’ll be
sitting in on a three-day workshop on light verse and parody, led by
Invite Loserbards Melissa Balmain and Frank Osen. What a gig! I don’t
have to make any presentations; I just sit there and shoot off my mouth
whenever I think of something. In fact, my biggest challenge is /not /
to shoot off my mouth every minute, and let other people talk for a
change. Also: those little cheesecake-cupcake things for dessert. Dang,
so good.
So I’m pretty much going to leave you here today with the results of our
last two (also first two) TankaWanka contests, from 2015 and 2014. I
came up with the name as a way to avoid gripes that I was doing it all
wrong because everyone knows that a tanka doesn’t rhyme. Yeah, well, a
TankaWanka does.
Note that this week I spelled out that at least two /lines/ have to
rhyme: previously I’d said that the poem had to /contain/ at least one
rhyme. In general, I favored the rhyme in those last two seven-syllable
lines; that little final couplet gave the feel of a micro-sonnet. But
that’s certainly not required.
You’ll see that these inking TankaWanka were highly topical. Fine with
me — as long as they’ll still work four weeks from now. I admit that
seems an eternity these days, when literally two days after the
president tweeted about negative “covfefe,” the fabulous parodists (and
Style Invitational Devotees) Sandy and Richard Riccardi posted this,
based on the old
jazz song “Black Coffee,” and one day later, the beyond-fabulous Randy
Rainbow came out with this tour de force show tune medley
. And the very day Trump
made the tweet, there was already a verbal tweet-tussle between Covfefe
the Strong and The Wizard Covfefe:
“No, you fool!
It is I who have been summoned! By the Great Orb of T’kketh!”
’Sokay. Covfefe is good for a few more weeks.
Here are the top winners from Week 1148, November 2015.
*It’s a tanka gas: The top TankaWanka news poems*
In Week 1148 we presented our second annual contest for TankaWanka poems
on the news. The TankaWanka — a form the Empress named so nobody could
accuse us of doing it wrong — is a variation on tanka, a classic
Japanese poetry form. Like tanka, the TW has five lines of 5-7-5-7-7
syllables (like a haiku that forgot to stop), but it also contains at
least one rhyme.
4th place: /Ben Carson believes Egyptian pyramids were used by biblical
Joseph /
Carson: Pyramids
Were for the storage of grain.
Evidence for this:
They’re sealed against the outside.
Much like Dr. Carson’s brain?
(Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
3rd place: /Coywolf, coyote-wolf hybrid, sees population boom /
Wolf, in search of mate,
Struck out, then said, “You know what?
Coyotes look great!”
Fairy tale changes wryly
When Riding Hood meets Wile E.
(Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
2nd place: /Nationals lose manager choice over too-low offer /
“Bud Black is our guy!
He can run our pitching staff!”
But they made a gaffe
With their offer so mulish—
Penny-wise and mound-foolish. (Perry Beider, Silver Spring, Md.)
And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial:/Google self-driving car pulled
over for driving too slowly, impeding traffic /
California fuzz
Stopped a car, and found it was
Driving by itself.
Gave a warning, didn’t cite.
Need I say the car was white?
(Nan Reiner, Boca Raton, Fla.)
Read the rest of the results here.
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*In Week 1095* we asked for a poem relating to events in the news, in a
form something like the Japanese tanka: five lines with a syllable count
of 5-7-5-7-7. But since real tankas don’t rhyme, and we insisted on at
least one rhyme per poem, we’re calling ours TankaWanka. The deadline
for this contest was before Election Day.
The winner of the Inkin’ Memorial: /“Gamergate,” harassment of women in
the gaming world: /
Gamer dweebs all say
Girls are not supposed to play.
Hey, guys: Get a clue.
We have learned what we can do
With our joysticks, without you. (Nan Reiner, Alexandria, Va.)
2nd place:
Midterm votes are done:
Optimism’s fading fast
That the folks who won
Somehow will — unlike the last —
See that more than gas gets passed. (Melissa Balmain, Rochester, N.Y.)
3rd place:
Sunni on Shia,
Russian troops in Crimea,
Ebola, ISIS,
Worldwide crisis and drama —
As per Fox: Thanks, Obama! (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
4th place:/[The actress Renée Zellweger had been the target of mockery
for heavy facial surgery]
/Ms. Zellweger:
Were she the sole entrant in
A contest to choose
The one who looked most like her,
Could Renée herself still lose? (Perry Beider, Silver Spring, Md.)
*Stanka: honorable mentions*
/Department of Homeland Security employees put $30,000 worth of
Starbucks on government credit card:/
At the DHS,
When they make a coffee run
It costs thirty thou.
If they want to get Starbucks,
They should not pay with OUR bucks. (Nan Reiner)
Kerry won’t pander,
So Israelis throw a fit
From State staff’s candor.
“Netanyahu’s chicken[poop]” –
(I confess I laughed a bit.)
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.)
The conservative
Wing of the Catholic Church
Was left in the lurch.
The libs are ecstatic in
Pope Francis’s Vatican. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)
See the full results of Week 1095
.
*GOAT, GOAT, GONE! FLUSHIES UPDATE*
*Good news! Bad news! Good news! * Some late developments about this
year’s Flushies awards “banquet” potluck on Saturday afternoon, June 17,
/to which you are personally invitedwith this invitation
if you are reading this column: /
*Good news No. 1:* Our host Robin Diallo will soon become a top U.S.
diplomat in Haiti! So she and husband Khalil will be moving there in a
few months. Robin, who’s currently in Baghdad and has also served in
Kabul, doesn’t shy away from challenging posts!
*Bad news: *This means that the Diallos have had to find new homes for
their farm animals. There’s a good chance that most or all will be gone
by June 17.
*Good news: *The Diallos do have a pool that’s not going anywhere — and
everyone is welcome to play in it. And emcee Kyle Hendrickson says he’s
come up with a new game to play during the festivities.
So far, none of the 54 guests who’ve signed up so far (including several
families) have changed their minds. But if you’d still like to come,
please answer the Evite soon, and come meet the Losers, the Empress,
etc. The next best thing to a bunch of goats — and really not all that
different. We hope that you’ll still want to come to the Flushies, goats
or no goats. But we’ll understand if you change your mind.
*BEGET A LIFE*: RESULTS OF WEEK 1227*
/*A non-inking headline by Tom Witte/
These were my instructions for the Week 1227
neologism contest, the one suggested by
Jeffrey Shirley with several funny examples:
“Name and describe a new life form — and no letter in the term may be
used twice, as in the examples above. ‘Life form’ is pretty vague on
purpose; the E always appreciates creativity, and of course The Funny.”
By “vague,” I meant I could take, say, Sean Spicer.
I didn’t mean I could take any of these -- and these were from just the
first few pages of entries:
A sports car
What someone says when...
A deer trap
A court
To think someone is ...
A musical instrument
A coffee machine
Mascara
A budget
A brochure
Fortunately, though, there were plenty of clever neologisms describing
some fanciful animal, plant, fungus, president, etc. The Week 1227
results include close to 50 inking entries
(including a whopping six by Kevin Dopart). Many of the best entries
ingeniously used biological terms to describe an “organism” that’s
clearly representing something else.
They’d be topped by this week’s Inkin’ Memorial winners, “D.J.T. Rex” by
Seth Tucker, that dinosaur with diminutive forelimbs and backward
vision. It’s the second Bobble-Linc for Seth, who now has a total of 34
blots of ink — five of them “above the fold.”
Joining Seth in the Losers’ Circle this week are perennials Frank Mann
(62 inks) and Mark Raffman, who with OMG 397 blots (including four this
week) is next in line to reach the 500-ink Hall of Fame, since David
Genser retired with 404. But in fourth place is an almost-newbie: It’s
just the third blot of ink, and first above the fold, for Selma Ellis of
the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, Ill.
What/didn’t /work — and I got a lot of these: “animals” or “plants”
described with traits that aren’t at all animal- or plantlike. Like:
“Preach: Fruit that won’t stop talking about how good it is for you.” Or
“Kumquit: A bitter fruit that takes its toys and goes home.” Bitter,
good; taking its toys, not good.
What also didn’t work: Words that didn’t follow the only other
requirement — that no letter appear in the word twice. That killed
“E*n*dolphi*n* (the happiest animal in the sea) and “W*oo*f spider”
among others. I /think / I caught any other offenders.
*What Doug Dug: * Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood reports that he
especially liked all four of the top winners and also singles out Kevin
Dopart’s “Iowasp” (emerges in large, noisy swarms in four-year cycles),
Ira Allen’s “Mikajoe,” Mark Raffman’s “U-tern,” Seth Tucker’s “Yo’ma,”
Dave Matuskey’s “E. moji,” and Beverley Sharp’s “Shyena.”
--
Well, I’m off to pontificate about light verse — and will be sure to
note to the students that nice TankaWanka ink for Frank Osen and Melissa
Balmain I show above.