| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1538 | Rhymes Against Humanity | wWrite a four-line poem about people in the news, using either of two poetic forms | H H |
| 1522 | Questionable Journalism | Find a sentence published in the next week and tell us what question it could answer | H |
| 1504 | All set — anagram all 100 Scrabble tiles | Write a Scrabblegram — an anagram of all 100 tiles in an English-language Scrabble set (your choice for the two blanks). Any punctuation is fine. | I H |
| 1412 | Jumble bells -- anagram a song line | Rearrange all the letters in a song title, or a line (or more if you dare!) from a song. Optional: Offer a parody of the original tune (or a few lines of it) that refers to the new title. | H |
| 1382 | For us, it's still Post Time | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 of the 145 previous Kentucky Derby winners, from 1875 to 2019, and name the foal to humorously reflect the parents' names. | H |
| 1372 | Trash talking, 1880-style | Write a quatrain or -- heck -- two of Balliol rhyme about some person. | H |
| 1344 | Well, that's just great -- It’s Limerixicon XVI | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "gr-". | 4 |
| 1284 | Same difference | Explain how any two of the items in the provided list are similar, different or otherwise linked. | H |
| 1274 | Heading for a foal -- our horse name 'breeding' contest | Your job is to "breed" any two names of the 360 horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to reflect both names. | H |
| 1147 | It's E-Z find-a-word -- yours | Create a word or multi-word term that consists of adjacent letters -- in any direction or several directions -- in the provided grid, and provide a humorous definition. | H |
| 1140 | You're giving us a bad name | Cite a REAL brand name, past or present, note its original use, and then say what sort of product, organization, etc., that name would be bad for. | H |
| 1133 | Are 'hew ready? A contest for clerihews | A clerihew is a humorous four-line rhyming poem about a person whose name is mentioned in the first line; in fact, the name must be at the end of that line (or constitute the whole line) so that it has to rhyme with something. The rhyme structure (and we don't want "lazy" rhymes) is AABB: the first line rhymes with the second, the third with the fourth. | I |
| 1034 | What's to like? | Supply an original joke of the form "I like my [your choice] the way I like my [something else of your choice]: [some clever, funny parallel]. | H |
| 1012 | The news at 5 | Write a limerick about a recent news event. | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 1005 | Send us the bill | Name a piece of legislation "cosponsored" by two or more of the 98 new House and Senate members provided. | 4 |
| 976 | Join now! | Combine the beginning and end of any two words or names in this week's Style Invitational or Style Conversational columns to make a new term, and define it. | 2 |
| 970 | Couple it | Take a line from any well-known poem and pair it with your own second line to make a humorous couplet. | H |
| 965 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses in this year's Triple Crown races and name their foal. | H |
| 955 | Twits' twist | Create a phrase by combining a word or phrase with an anagram of that word or phrase, and define or describe it. | H |
| 952 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2011. | H |
| 938 | Free and Lear | Write a limerick using the first two lines of any of Edward Lear's 115 limericks plus your own remaining three lines. | H |
| 930 | We WANT stupid complaints! | Complain comically unreasonably about some innocuous thing appearing in the print Post or on washingtonpost.com over the next week or the previous few days. | H |
| 921 | Give Us Willies | Write an original Little Willie poem, perhaps reflecting our current era. This is a venerable four-line genre in which Master W. does some nasty thing and doesn't tend to learn to be a Good Boy by poem's end. | H |
| 914 | Foaling around | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H |
| 901 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2010. | H |
| 885 | Mess with our heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 10 through Sept. 20 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head. | H |
| 882 | Limerixicon VII | Supply a humorous limerick prominently featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters dr-. | H |
| 863 | It's Post time | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H |
| 855 | The news could be verse | Sum up an article (or even an ad!) in any Washington Post print or online edition from Feb. 6 through Feb. 15 in verse. | W |
| 830 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Aug. 14 through Aug. 24 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H |
| 810 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two of the more than 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races and provide an appropriate name for their foal. | H |
| 798 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem commemorating someone who died in 2008. | H |
| 748 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about a well-known personage who died in 2007. | H 4 |
| 738 | So What's To Liken? | Take any two items from the utterly random list above and explain how they are different or how they are similar. | H |
| 734 | Turnaround Time | Write a rhyming couplet containing two words that are anagrams of each other. | T H |
| 729 | Otherwordly Visions | Take any sentence in an article or ad in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 1 through Sept. 10 and translate it into "plain English. | P |
| 724 | Abridged Too Far | Sum up a book, play or movie in a humorous rhyming verse of two to four lines. | H |
| 706 | Questionable Journalism | Take any sentence that appears in The Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com from March 24 through April 2 and come up with a question it could answer. | H |
| 700 | Stump Us | Come up with someone's slogan for the 2008 presidential campaign. | H |
| 695 | Dead Letters | Write a poem about someone who died in 2006. | H |
| 683 | What a Piece of Work | String together words in a single scene, or two consecutive scenes, of "Hamlet" to produce one or more funny sentences, preferably unrelated to the original content. The words must appear in the order in which they appear in the play. | I |
| 681 | Ticket to Write | Write a jingle for a business (or its product), organization or government agency, set to a Beatles song. | H |
| 677 | The News Gets Verse | Sum up wittily in verse -- but not a limerick -- any article appearing in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4. | W H H H |
| 674 | Limerixicon 3 | Supply a humorous limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ca-. | H H |
| 659 | Tell Us a Fib | Compose a six-line poem with the following number of syllables per line: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. It must be about a person or topic currently in the news, and two successive lines must rhyme. | H |
| 656 | It's Post Time | Breed any two from a list of 100 of the more than 400 3-year-old racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races, and name their hypothetical foal. The foal's name cannot exceed 18 characters and spaces combined. | H |
| 643 | The Post's Mortems | Give us a rhyming poem about some notable who died in 2005. | H H H |
| 636 | A Song From Tex Arcana | Write a verse of a song about sea urchin sushi or any of the other provided ostensibly unlyrical topics. | 3 |
| 628 | You Gotta Have Connections | Choose any two or more items from the provided truly random list and describe how they are alike or different. | W |
| 624 | Limerixicon 2 | Supply a limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with bd- through bl-. | H 3 |
| 606 | The News Could be Verse | Translate the fine prose of Washington Post articles into verse. Choose any article appearing in The Post of on its Web site from April 17 through April 25. | H H 2 |
| 446 | Poems Where the Heart Is | Take any recent news event and summarize it in a rhyming poem of eight lines or fewer. | H |
| 315 | FERMENTING TROUBLE | Write a rhyming poem, eight lines maximum, on the subject of cheese or any of the provided items. | H 4 |
| 275 | THERE ONCE WAS CONTEST FROM NANTUCKET . . . | Write a limerick in which the first line is about someone who comes from some place in the Washington area. | H H 4 |
| 192 | HILL'S BILLS | Come up with bills any of the new members of Congress might jointly sponsor. | 4 |
| 189 | YOU CAN PRANK ON IT | Come up with a hoax or prank that begins with any of the provided scenarios. | 2 |
| 181 | YOU CAN TAKE IT TO DEBUNK | Take a common slogan or saying and prove it wrong with at least one example. | H |
| 172 | POEDTRY | An entire poetic form, making its global debut in the Style Invitational. The first line must contain only six words of one syllable each; the second line, three words of two syllables each; the third line, two words of three syllables each, and the final line a single word of six syllables. At least two lines must rhyme. The general subject matter should be mundane. | H 5 |
| 169 | DIFF'RENT JOKES | Tell us the difference between any two of the provided items. | W |
| 163 | WHAT KIND OF FOAL AM I? | Take the list of all 1996 Triple Crown nominees, couple up any two of them, and propose an appropriate name for their hypothetical foal. The foal's name must fit in no more than 18 characters, including spaces. | H |
| 144 | JUST REBUS ALONE | Come up with a rebus, a phrase or sentence composed of letters, pictures, and symbols. Your entry must contain at least two pictures or illustrations from today's Washington Post. | 3 |
| 143 | IT'S MY PARODY (& I'LL TRY IF I WANT TO) | Rewrite any common jingle or theme song in the style of famous writer. | W I |
| 134 | A SIMPLE CLERIHEW ERROR | Revive clerihews. A clerihew is a biographical poem in four lines divided into two rhyming couplets. The rhyme scheme is aa bb. The first line of the clerihew must contain the name of the subject of the poem. The lines must be of disparate meter, the clunkier the better. | H 2 |
| 132 | GIVE US THE BACKS OFF OUR SHIRTS. | What should our loser's T-shirt say on the back? Your goal is to somehow capture the spirit of the contest. | H |
| 116 | WRITE PURE POETRY | Write a complete sentence using only the letters contained on the top row of a typewriter. Alternatively, you can use the letters of the first four lines of the standard eye chart. | H H |
| 107 | CLUSTERS' LAST STAND | Take an actual star cluster, redraw the lines into a different image, and give it a new name. | W |
| 104 | HERE, DOGGEREL | Create poems so bad they thud. The first line must be a name. The second line can be as long or as short as you wish. The third line must sound the same as the first line, using the name as a verb or some other part of speech. | H |
| 49 | A SLALOM OCCASION | Come up with events for a Washington Olympics. They can be winter or summer sports, based on bureaucracy or other themes peculiar to Washington, and must include a brief description of the event. | H |
| 48 | SNIVEL WAR | Beg for the coveted Style Invitational T-shirts. | R |