The Cheerfulness Challenge<\/a> called upon contestants to craft a cheerful composition containing these 20 cantankerous words.
\ndrenched, socket, furrowed, butchering, searing, blood, damp skin, spoil, boil, winces, clots, scalp, plies, plucking, gutting, stain, spalting, sliced, and shattered.
\nThere were a number of excellent entries but one stood apart. Here is our worthy winner:
\nAt the Foreign Anguish Bar & Grill, by Carol Chittenden
\n
\nA troll walks into a bar one night
\nShe slams her fist on the spalting plank.
\n\u201cA bucket of blood,\u201d she shouts so hoarse
\n\u201cAnd shatter a chicken,\u201d she yells to Hank.
\nHank boils the concoction of murky stain,
\nWhile plucking and gutting the bird;
\nHis damp skin drenched with clots of gore,
\nAsks her cheerfully, \u201cWhat\u2019s the word?\u201d
\nHer one good socket fixes him hard,
\nWith butchering gaze and searing sigh.
\nHer furrowed scalp puckers all tight.
\nHe winces and wipes the drizzle dry.
\n\u201cDamned entropy sliced my prey last week.
\n\u201cIt plied me with drink for nineteen days.
\n\u201cVegetarians spoil so fast,\u201d she growls.
\n\u201cNo time at all til a fresh one decays.\u201d
\nKudos to Carol! Her prize is en route.
\nA prize is also pending for our runner-up.
\nAmbrose
\nIn the depth of a forest named Nodd
\nAging Ambrose felt awesomely odd
\nHe decided he\u2019d try
\nTo discover just why
\n\u201cWill this spoil my hardened facade?\u201d
\nAll this butchering, gutting and plucking inside
\nIf it weren\u2019t oddly awesome, he\u2019d surely have cried!
\nClots of strange stuff
\nWere making it rough
\nWhat was worse, it was searing his pride!
\nOf the thing neath his scalp he did query
\n\u201cMight you have intellectual theory?\u201d
\nThen arms up-stretched
\nTrue wisdom he fetched
\nWithout one minuscule worry
\nA socket protruding his plies of damp skin
\nSoon led him to see foreign blood furrowed in
\nNow Ambrose felt drenched
\nAs it furrowed and wrenched
\nAnd in spite of it all he did grin!
\n\u201cWhilst shattered and sliced, this slow boil is vaulting!\u201d
\nAnd seeing bright stain spreading beauty not halting
\nHe winces with glee
\n\u201cI\u2019m so glad I\u2019m a tree!
\nLook here! Oh my goodness! I\u2019m spalting!\u201d
\n-ch
\nThanks to everyone who entered!
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captivatingly Creative Contestant Carol Chittenden Captures Cheerfulness Challenge Crown. The astonishingly good winning entry of our National Poetry Month contest is revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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