This puzzle has three parts, whose solutions are below. The answers to the three parts are THE LAMB, FIND PAIRED POEM, and FIRST TWO LINES. The Lamb is a poem by William Blake that is paired with his poem The Tyger, whose first two lines are TYGER TYGER BURNING BRIGHT IN THE FORESTS OF THE NIGHT, which is the answer.
| Limerick | Alliterative Term |
|---|---|
| At these snacks you should not be a HATER, We all love them, sooner or LATER. Chop potatoes a LOT, Then fry in a POT, And your side dish will be even GREATER. | TATER TOT |
| When Kanye raps at a great CLIP, Or Kendrick Lamar makes a QUIP The party won't STOP Cause this song is a BOP It's a genre that you should not SKIP! | HIP HOP |
| This thing is a curse that's MEDIEVAL, One glance can cause quite the UPHEAVAL. It could make you CRY, Or possibly DIE, Or make your existence PRIMEVAL. | EVIL EYE |
| It really is terribly WRONG, That although our friendship is STRONG, Our paths haven't CROSSED And I've incurred such a COST, And that's why I wrote you this SONG. | LONG LOST |
| What can you do when you're SMALL, That also is fun when you're TALL? There are shows on STAGES, That are quite the RAGES, And everyone will have a BALL. | ALL AGES |
| This rodent is really quite TRICKY, The situations he's in are oft STICKY. He lives in a HOUSE, With Minnie, his SPOUSE, And in his food choice he's never that PICKY. | MICKEY MOUSE |
| This ruler from fiction I DIG, He's quite like Napoleon the PIG. One after the OTHER, Our rights he does SMOTHER, And every election he'll RIG. | BIG BROTHER |
Reading the first letters yields THE LAMB.
This puzzle is a single sonnet that doesn't seem to follow a consistent meter. Each line clues a NATO phonetic alphabet letter, which read IAMBS ARE ZEROES. Each line consists of a combination of five iambs and trochees, so as suggested by the message, interpret the iambs as 0s, the trochees as 1s, and read the result in binary.
| Line | NATO Letter | Scansion | Feet as Binary | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This country's most peopled city's Bombay. | India | -/-//-/--/ | 00110 | F |
| The Greek alphabet starts with THIS letter. | Alpha | -//--/-//- | 01001 | I |
| The ear-biting Tyson causing a stir. | Mike | -//-/-/--/ | 01110 | N |
| Congrats! Hooray! Kudos! Huzzah! And yay! | Bravo | -/-//--/-/ | 00100 | D |
| African nation's name is blank Leone. | Sierra | /--/-/-/-/ | 10000 | P |
| The first of words in posh Milan autos. | Alfa | -/-/-/-//- | 00001 | A |
| This word second in posh Milan autos. | Romeo | -//--/-//- | 01001 | I |
| Hearing yourself upon speaking by phone. | Echo | /--/-//--/ | 10010 | R |
| This Southern tribe (Africa) fought Britain. | Zulu | -/-//--//- | 00101 | E |
| A nymph, her voice, stolen by Hera's curse. | Echo | -/-//--/-/ | 00100 | D |
| Character Shakespeare wrote a play in verse. | Romeo | /--/-/-/-/ | 10000 | P |
| A trash can this muppet likes to sit in. | Oscar | -//-/-/-/- | 01111 | O |
| Alexa's smart speaker, its light glowy. | Echo | -/-//--//- | 00101 | E |
| A range, blank Nevada, with peaks snowy. | Sierra | -//-/--//- | 01101 | M |
The result is FIND PAIRED POEM.
Every given poem paraphrases a famous poem in a fairly awkward way. This is because each uses only a subset of the English language consisting of words of restricted lengths. Some of these are somewhat familiar at Mathcamp (Game of Four, Twelve Halves Tongue), but some were invented for this puzzle (Composite Language, Odd Speak, Talk with Squarings, Triangular Number Dialog). Moreover, exactly one word in the title of each poem satisfies the restriction. Indexing into that word with the given numbers yields the following:
| Paraphrased Poem | Title | Restriction | Title Word | Index | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I assert inconsistencies? Too bad for you, I assert inconsistencies, (I occupy volume, I embody multitudes.) | Song of Myself | Triangular Number Dialog | MYSELF | 6 | F |
| This song venerates arms plus person, that originally from Trojan coasts driven fatefully toward Italy's Lavinian shores, Gods' passions, including Junonian vengeance, Have thrown endlessly from land onto seas. | The Aeneid | Composite Language | AENEID | 5 | I |
| League halves, league halves, League halves onward, Wholly amidst death's valley Rushed thirty scores. ""Invade, Nimble Patrol! Attack cannon!"" leader stated. Toward death's valley Rushed thirty scores. | The Charge of the Light Brigade | Twelve Halves Tongue | CHARGE | 4 | R |
| I ate the prunes inhabiting the icebox the prunes you presumably wanted for brunch I beg pardon prunes are delectable and sugary and frosty | This is just to say | Triangular Number Dialog | SAY | 1 | S |
| Resist placid motion toward benign Erebus, Dotage should scorch, scream during sunset; Seethe, seethe versus light's demise. | Do not go gentle into that good night | Twelve Halves Tongue | GENTLE | 4 | T |
| Methinks, unsure, woodland's ownership, Owner's home downtown though; They won't notice that we're stopping here Watching this forest fill with snow. | Stopping by woods on a snowy evening | Composite Language | STOPPING | 2 | T |
| Was brillig, and the slimy toves Did whirl and gimbled among the wabes. All mimsy was the borogrove, And the mom raths outgrabed. | Jabberwocky | Odd Speak | JABBERWOCKY | 7 | W |
| Wow! I and you, erstwhile spear Danes, heard the people's kings' power praised, and great honor the athelings won. | Beowulf | Odd Speak | BEOWULF | 3 | O |
| Germinal's a cruellest moon, begetting Lavenders from dead land, commixing Mnemosyne with lust, inspiring Dull root with Apriltide rain. | The Waste Land | Talk with Squarings | LAND | 1 | L |
| Regard the Things I did, O Mighty, and capitulate! Nought beside withstands. Around the gargantuan Wreck's debris, monotonous and barren The lonely and horizontal wastelands extend far off. | Ozymandias | Triangular Number Dialog | OZYMANDIAS | 8 | I |
| A lady with a lute In a mind trip once I saw: It was a maid from Cush And on her lute she did play, And sing of a peak of Cush. If I were to call once more in me Her air and song, To such a deep joy it were to win me, That with tune loud and long, I will make that dome in air, That dome of sun! that cave of ice! And all who hear will see them here, And all will cry, Take care! Take care! His eyes that burn, his mane of hair! Knit a disk to ring him oft, And shut your eyes with holy fear For he on dew of bees hath fed And had the milk of Eden. | Kubla Khan | Game of Four | KHAN | 4 | N |
| And so, in each late hour, I lie down by the side Of my dear—my dear—my life and my wife, In her home for the dead down by the sea— In her tomb by the low sea. | Annabel Lee | Game of Four | LEE | 2 | E |
| I Sami. Sami I. That Sami-Which-I'm-Named! That Sami-Which-I'm-Named! I don't like that Sami-Which-I'm-Named! Dost thou like Virescent omelettes with pork? | Green eggs and ham | Talk with Squarings | EGGS | 4 | S |
The result is FIRST TWO LINES.