Jason Linkins, over at Huffington Post, challenges us to write poetry using an odd combination of words:
FUN FACT: Our blog software has four alternate suggestions for the word “tchotchkes,” which it does not recognize. They are:
LATCHKEYS.
HOPSCOTCHES.
CROTCHLESS.
HOTCAKES.I should very much like to see if anyone can write a bracing poem or epigram using these four words, in any context. Send your submissions to me, via email, with the subject line: “THE GREAT HUFFPO LATCHKEYS HOPSCOTCHES CROTCHLESS HOTCAKES LITERARY CONTEST IS AFOOT!” I will, in turn, nominate your offerings for prestigious literary awards, like the Man Booker Prize.
So I decided to have some fun with it, writing both a limerick and a more serious poem. First, my limerick:
As a crotchless young woman from Spain
Is savoring hotcakes on Main,
Who hopscotches by?
A buck-naked guy,
Twirling latchkeys and looking insane.
And now something more serious, using the same quartet of words:
Disconsolate youth,
Lacking latchkeys and adult supervision,
Run around crotchless, uncouth,
Subsisting on hotcakes,
While their absent father
Hopscotches through life.
