Sharpakey-Flatakey!
Sergei Rachmaninoff,
Russian composer, what
Wonders he wrote!

Good thing he'd not abuse
Pianississimo;
Else he might not be a
Person of note.

or, alternatively...

Sharpakey-Flatakey!
Sergei Rachmaninoff,
Russian composer, a
Person of note. 

Some folks complain about
Pianississimo;
Suck it up, people; that's
Just how he wrote!

------------------------------------------------

The only problem with the second one is that I have no idea whether or not Rachmaninoff used a lot of pianississimo (damn, that's hard to type), and, if he did, whether or not many people objected to it.

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Author guidance for This poem

Any of you remember Omni magazine? It was an awesome science fact and science fiction monthly that ran from 1978 until 1995. I subscribed to it for a while, and I loved it. It was always interesting, always provocative, and it always had really cool contests near the back of each issue.

One such contest was call for poems. The format was very specific. If I recall correctly, the winning entry went something like this:

Higglety-Pigglety
Erich von Däniken
Writes of green spacemen that
Come from afar.

Next he'll be telling us
Extraterrestrials
Landed in Dallas to
Murder J.R.!

This form is sometimes known as the "Double Dactyl," due to the fact that each line consists of two dactylic "feet" (DA-da-da). It is also sometimes known as simply "Higglety-Pigglety."

The meter is simple: Two verses of 6-6-6-4. That's four lines per verse, the first three of which must have six syllables, and the last of which must have four syllables.

The rhyme scheme is even simpler: The last line of the first verse must rhyme with the last line of the second verse.

But that's the easy part! Here are the rest of the rules:

The first line must be repetitive, dactylic, sing-song nonsense: specifically, two similar-sounding nonsense words connected by a hyphen. Ideally, these two nonsense words should be a "minimal pair," i.e. two words that differ in only one sound. Some examples: Hippity-Hoppity, Humpity-Dumpity, Wibbeley-Wobbeley, Diggery-Doggery, Flabbity-Wabbity, Nambity-Pambity, and the ever-popular Higglety-Pigglety.

The second line must be the name of a well-known person or character. Just the name. Nothing else. Six syllables. No more, no less. Some fudging allowed. I remember one of the entries used "Sir Issac Asimov," even though Mr. Asimov was never knighted, or even British. That kind of imaginative padding is quite okay.

The second line of the second verse must be a single, six-syllable word.

Ideally, it would be nice not to reuse a six-syllable word that someone else has already used, so... for your convenience, here is a list of the six-syllable words used so far. Repeats are indicated by a parenthesized number after the word, and questionable words (i.e. words that either aren't six-syllables or aren't real words at all) are indicated by a parenthesized comment.

I've also alphabetized the list for easier maintenance.

Ailurophobia
Alphabetization
Antediluvian
Appassionata (needs particular pronunciation)
Circumnavigating
Confabulatory
Confederationed (Is it a word?)
Discombobulated
Discontinuity (2)
Evidentiary
Exponentiality (depends on pronunciation)
Holographically (depends on pronunciation)
Hyperventilating
Immortalization
Impossibility
Incomprehensible (2)
Indefatigable (2)
Indianapolis
Inefficaciously
Inexplicably (Nope – Only five syllables)
Infinitesimal
Interdependency
Meteorology
Neo-Impressionist
Obstreperosity
Octogenarian
Paleontologist
Phantasmagorias
Phantasmagorical (lame copy-cat)
Pharmacological
Pianississimo
Popocatépetl
Revolutionary
Rizzlistically (?) (but works for the context)
Sesquicentennial
Sound-synchronization (Not a single word)
Spirituality (2)
Superannuated
Sustainability
Thanatological
Theologically
Unmeditatively
Unnessarily
Verisimilitude (2)

updated Jan 26 '10 by Faltarego