The Washington Post "Style Invitational" (3/30/03) on New Criticism and Structuralism

Report from Week CLXII, in which you were asked to summarize a highly complex issue in words of one syllable:

No two folks have the same prose style. The man who wrote "The Old Man and the Sea" wrote like this. James Joyce did not. (Ken Gallant, Little Rock)

If we clone a man, things might go ronwg.   (Sally Fasman, Washington)

-------------The ones below are not particularly relevant, but they're about literary style applied to popular culture in such a way that the authors' names might be said to come "under erasure."  The previous week's entries were supposed "to rewrite some banal instructions in the style of some famous writer."---------

And the winner of the shotgun shell salt and pepper shaker:

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within

Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.

Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:

Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.

Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,

A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.

To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.

Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.

The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt

Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

-- by William Shakespeare (Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls) [I really wish he could have managed that missing quatrain--any help out there?--a.]

A gauzy Skein of Propylene --

That sways with slightest Breath --

This bag holds smocks -- and Bread and Milk

But -- in its folds -- lies Death.

It sways and puffs -- this Thistledown, Balloonlike in its joy --

Each tiny mouth a perfect fit -- This bag is not a toy.

-- Emily Dickinson

(Jim Roy Wilson, Washington)