The Invitational Week 151: From Verse to Better
Write a poem about a poem. Plus new riffs on ‘If we can put a man on the moon ...’
Gene Weingarten and Pat Myers
Nov 20, 2025




John Tenniel’s illustration of “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, 1871.
Hello.

“Play It Again, Sam” is a movie about a movie. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is a play about a play. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” is a book about a book.

With today’s contest, we’re boldly extending the genre. We’ve never done this before. Has anyone?

So: Write us a poem about a poem.

Here’s one we did for you:

The Walrus and The Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll
A sea-dwelling mammal and his friend who worked wood
Asked some bivalves to luncheon, to fete ’em.
When it was over, only two diners stood —
The oysters? The other guys et ’em.

—

So. For Invitational Week 151: Write a rhyming poem that humorously summarizes, critiques, or otherwise describes another, well-known poem, as in Gene’s example above. Be sure to give the title and author of the poem you’re using, and make sure it’s available online so readers — Gene and Pat, for example — can compare yours with the original. Give us the link.

We’ve anticipated a few questions:

What do you mean by a poem? A poem is anything that is generally regarded to be a poem. Yeats and Eliot wrote poetry, but so did Dr. Seuss and Ogden Nash. Classy is good, but so is well-known doggerel.

Does the original poem have to rhyme? No, so long as it is clearly recognized as a poem. William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a poem. Shakespeare’s sonnets are poetry, but Hamlet’s soliloquy is not; it may be poetic, but it is not a poem.

Can a song be a poem? If the writing is known primarily as song lyrics, don’t use it.

How long can our poems be? Anywhere from two lines to fourteen, which is the length of a sonnet. It’s harder, though, for longer verses to be entertaining all the way through.

Entry deadline is Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Dec. 4. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. (Yes, indeed, certain Invite-obsessives have been known to write TWENTY-FIVE POEMS IN NINE DAYS. Feel free to write 24 fewer poems than that.)

Formatting this week: Just type your poems as they ought to look on the screen; don’t put each entry on a single line, as we usually request.

Click here for this week’s entry form or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-151.

(Note: If you are reading this in an email, please click on the headline at the top of the page to get an updated version of The Gene Pool online, with any amendments, emendations, etc. made after the email was sent.)

This week’s winner receives a pair of car headrest covers — with friendly faces on both the front and back. They’re made of a stretchy polyester that easily fits on (and can quickly come off, in case you’re driving a freakouty passenger). They’re just a printed design, not 3-D; the trompe l’oeil effect isn’t quite as effective as in these ad photos, but the covers looked pretty funny on the Empress’s Kia Soul.




Two smiling passengers who’ll never criticize your driving. This week’s prize.
Hear ye! Next week’s Invitational will appear on Friday, Nov. 28. Happy Thanksgiving!

One LOL Step: ‘Moon’ musings from Week 149
In Invitational Week 149 we asked you to finish the 1969-vintage kvetch “If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they …” Most of the almost 600 entries brought Andy Rooney back from the dead to grump about one peeve or other, but forgot to bring his charm or to bring him into the 21st century. One that wasn’t Rooneyey but was submitted by too many people to credit individually: “ … why can’t they build a big beautiful ballroom there?” (All “signed” by the same person.)

Third runner-up:
If we can put a man on the moon, then why can’t we protect powerful male elites from those devious 14-year-old temptresses they’re helpless to resist? (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Second runner-up:
… then why can’t we create a vaccine against stupidity? (Although, to be fair, stupid people would probably refuse it.) (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

First runner-up:
… then why can’t we make a road map that’s easy to fold? Driving is hard enough when you’re 95, dagnabbit. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

And the winner of the Style Invitational Loser mug from our WaPo days:
… then why can’t we put a Slinky on some M.C. Escher stairs and use the resulting perpetual motion for peaceful purposes? (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

And now the Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Artemisses: Honorable mentions
If we can put a man on the moon, then why can’t we convince everyone that we put a man on the moon? (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.; Daniel Galef, Cincinnati; Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

If we can put a man on the moon, then why can’t we elect a president who’s young enough not to remember it? (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

… then why can’t we have phones that route scammers’ texts to other scammers? (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)

… then why can’t they make a self-carving pumpkin? (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)

… then why can’t they get the residents of Portland to notice that their city is a flaming, unlivable hellhole? (Duncan Stevens)

… then why can’t we abandon planes, trains, and automobiles and just use the military’s secret transporter beams? (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

… then why can’t they build better balcony railings for Russian dissidents? (Duncan Stevens)

... then why can’t we create a colonoscopy prep drink that tastes more like Yoo-Hoo and less like Liquid-Plumr? (Elliott Shevin, West Bank)

... then why can’t we collect actual sports stars instead of just cards? — E. Musk (Jon Gearhart)

... then why can’t we develop edible silica gel and Tide Pods? I mean, it seems like everyone wants to eat them. (Duncan Stevens)

... then why can’t we kick the ball away from this tree a little bit? —DJT (Jesse Frankovich)

… then why can I still hear the man urinating in the hotel room next door? (Terri Berg Smith, Rockville, Md.)

… then why can’t we figure out the whole Schrödinger cat thing, whatever the hell it is? (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

… then why can’t we get Yo Mama back into her shipping crate? (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

… then why can’t they combine the active ingredients of Viagra and Rogaine into a single ManUp pill? (Jon Ketzner)

… then why can’t they break the world record for most toothpicks in a beard? (3,500.) — Joel Strasser, Kuna, Idaho. USA! USA! (Roy Ashley)




Surely you can fit ONE MORE TOOTHPICK in there …
… then why can’t they design a morning-after pill for women to drop in a fella’s coffee that will make him a responsible, contented family man? (Jon Ketzner)

… then why can’t they find a better anagram for XYLOPHONE then OXYPHENOL? (Roy Ashley)

…then why can’t they have both an automatic faucet and an automatic soap dispenser that work at the same sink in a New Jersey Turnpike bathroom? (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

… then why can’t we alleviate the psychological trauma that comes from waking up each day in a patriarchal, heteronormative, racist, sexist, ableist society with second-rate bagels and pizza? (Mark Raffman)

… then why can’t we create more convincing fake moon landing videos? (John Kupiec, Fairfax, Va.)

… then why can’t we stage an equally convincing Mars landing? (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)

… then why can’t we find a new benchmark for human progress? (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.; Richard Alexander, Grand Rapids, Mich.)

The headline “One LOL Step” is by Jesse Frankovich; both Chris Doyle and Judy Freed submitted the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline Saturday, Nov. 22, at 9 p.m. ET: Our contest to write something funny that uses only a line of nine letters on a keyboard. Click below for details.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: ()
Judging: ()
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Chris Doyle; Judy Freed)
Prize: ()
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!