Ode To AOL’s Huffington Post Acquisition
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The Huffington Post has been bought.
In AOL’s lair it’s been caught.
Will its death there be quick,
Or will some readers stick?
And will payment for scribes remain naught?
Here’s the New York Times on the acquisition and Huffington’s announcement.
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.
Mad Kane (Madeleine Begun Kane) is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." She won the Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor and enjoys writing limericks, song parodies, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
