"Poets' Corner" - July 26, 2019

[FrankH]

Arnold Brockman has posted a warning about betrayal (does he mean spoilers?) but I'm not seeing any and I'm usually the first to gripe about them.

Some time ago in the WSJ forum someone mentioned that any comment about the brilliance of the construction is a spoiler because it is pointing out where you need to look and narrowing down the possibilities.

[Joe Ross]

May we say that the construction was a dilly, in a way?

[MarkL]

Is it true Isaac was not serving Bud Light?

[Stukmn]

Just returned from a family reunion and something just clicked. Unfortunately I had already sent in an answer that worked ok, but the new answer makes a lot more sense. Oh well...next week.

Seems there were a few of us doing the family reunion thing this weekend. Hope you had a nice time with your family!

[MaineMarge]

Indeed it was a dilly, Joe. As was the aha answer IDYLL. I wrote as much in my submission. Mike will mention how many of us couldn’t resist doing that. Now, no more dilly-dallying. Back to work.

[Deb F]

I don't see a solution this morning as there's no new puzzle. So--would I have been wrong to have submitted IDYLL? Yes, a dilly indeed. Thanks again, Wendy and welcome back Bob!

[Bob cruise director]

I don't see a solution this morning as there's no new puzzle. So--would I have been wrong to have submitted IDYLL? Yes, a dilly indeed. Thanks again, Wendy and welcome back Bob!

The contest is not up as of 7:50 EST but https://crosswordfiend.com/2019/07/28/w ... ore-105591 agrees with you (and probably most of the rest of us

[FrankieHeck]

Arnold Brockman has posted a warning about betrayal (does he mean spoilers?) but I'm not seeing any and I'm usually the first to gripe about them.

Some time ago in the WSJ forum someone mentioned that any comment about the brilliance of the construction is a spoiler because it is pointing out where you need to look and narrowing down the possibilities.

I did think there were more inadvertent hints for this one. It was certainly made clear that you'd likely have to google multiple things to get the answer, unless you knew your poetry. I think someone posted about the "adjectival form of the answer." I'm pretty sure that someone even referred to looking up the last author. Maybe the first step was that obvious, but still a lot more than we'd dare say about a MGWCC. And I know, because I keep going back to that thread and looking for hints

[SewYoung]

I don't see a solution this morning as there's no new puzzle. So--would I have been wrong to have submitted IDYLL? Yes, a dilly indeed. Thanks again, Wendy and welcome back Bob!

The contest is not up as of 7:50 EST but https://crosswordfiend.com/2019/07/28/w ... ore-105591 agrees with you (and probably most of the rest of us

The first word that I came up with was "Dilly". While that is a good description of the puzzle and the process, I didn't like it as a contest answer so I didn't submit right away. Glad I held off as I looked again later and saw "Idyll" which is a much more appropriate answer.

[CPJohnson]

However, "dilly" results if you place the authors' names in alphabetical order. I feel pageanted.

[BethA]

As I was doing the grid, 6A AUD seemed odd, and sounded odd to me. As I looked up the poet for each, and came to WH Auden for Lullaby, bells went ding-ding-ding and lights started flashing! That was the tip-off for me!

So DILLY is the alternate answer people were mentioning?

@FrankieHeck — wow, what is that huge goblet of puzzle juice in your picture??

[Cbburns]

Maybe a week where two answers are correct! I think all the poets in the puzzle could be considered a great example of a poet....so I am urging for “dilly” to be considered a correct answer. Had the answer been a five letter adjective “ idyll” would have been correct. But had the answer been a 5 letter noun, than “ dilly” would have been correct..

[FrankieHeck]

@FrankieHeck — wow, what is that huge goblet of puzzle juice in your picture??

Haha, yes it is! Every Saturday I take any metas-in-progress to date night at our favorite dive bar, for a 'fishbowl" (or three) of what I will now think of as puzzle juice. Sometimes it helps me see the answer; more often it does not.

[Joe Ross]

@FrankieHeck — wow, what is that huge goblet of puzzle juice in your picture??

Haha, yes it is! Every Saturday I take any metas-in-progress to date night at our favorite dive bar, for a 'fishbowl" (or three) of what I will now think of as puzzle juice. Sometimes it helps me see the answer; more often it does not.

@FrankieHeck — wow, what is that huge goblet of puzzle juice in your picture??

Want one! Favorite dive bar in college was surrounded by a residential neighborhood. The old roadhouse was there first and the neighborhood grew around it, possibly after the stagecoach or path-to-market was rerouted a few idyllic farms away. They only served beer in 32 ounce fishbowls.

[FrankieHeck]

Want one! Favorite dive bar in college was surrounded by a residential neighborhood. The old roadhouse was there first and the neighborhood grew around it, possibly after the stagecoach or path-to-market was rerouted a few idyllic farms away. They only served beer in 32 ounce fishbowls.

Sounds lovely! Maybe our next vacation can be a cross-country tour of dive bars! (Ours is also in a residential neighborhood in a college town. Our population is set to double when the students come back, and our chances of getting a Saturday seat will be greatly reduced.)

[KayW]

I needed to google every single poem title and poet in the theme answers. Once I did that, TENNY leapt right out at me from the grid and the solution soon followed. I had written down the poems/poets in order they appeared in the puzzle as I looked them up, so I avoided that DILLY of a misstep.

A lovely meta that gave me more exposure to poetry than I've had in a long while. Both while solving and while reading through this thread Kudos to all you poetic muggles!

And since the solve came so quickly, I spent some more time over the weekend re-solving it using the method here Joe Ross' Guide to Solving the WSJ Meta with Excel. A big thanks!! to Joe for taking the time to write this all up and answer noob questions. As a pen-and-paper cruciverbasaurus, I knew I'd have a bit of a learning curve with the methodology. I'm glad I went through the process on a week my brain was not already overwhelmed with a hair-pulling (or hare-pulling) meta. No more reprinting/reworking the grid when it gets marked up beyond recognition with dead-end rabbit holes.

[Bird Lives]

Arnold Brockman has posted a warning about betrayal (does he mean spoilers?) but I'm not seeing any and I'm usually the first to gripe about them.

Some time ago in the WSJ forum someone mentioned that any comment about the brilliance of the construction is a spoiler because it is pointing out where you need to look and narrowing down the possibilities.

I did think there were more inadvertent hints for this one. It was certainly made clear that you'd likely have to google multiple things to get the answer, unless you knew your poetry. I think someone posted about the "adjectival form of the answer." I'm pretty sure that someone even referred to looking up the last author. Maybe the first step was that obvious, but still a lot more than we'd dare say about a MGWCC. And I know, because I keep going back to that thread and looking for hints

That was me. I didn't think that referring to "the adjective derived from the answer" would be useful to anyone who didn't already know the answer. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the information that the answer was not an adjective tipped someone off.

I also said that I had to "Google the last two" -- no mention of authors or anything else -- but I think that people here often comment that they have had to use Google.

[Joe Ross]

Sounds lovely! Maybe our next vacation can be a cross-country tour of dive bars! (Ours is also in a residential neighborhood in a college town. Our population is set to double when the students come back, and our chances of getting a Saturday seat will be greatly reduced.)

Alas, this dive bar, The Swinging Doors, in College Hill, no less. was demolished 10 years ago. The two colleges for which the area was named were gone long before the tavern's demise.

"Any dive-bar tour is a great basis for a fun vacation", he hiccupped.

[FrankieHeck]

I didn't think that referring to "the adjective derived from the answer" would be useful to anyone who didn't already know the answer.

I don't think it would be, and I don't think any of the comments gave much away. It just seemed to me like there were more subtle references to how the puzzle was solved this time. Maybe because most people got it so easily anyway. I didn't mean to come across as scolding at all. When I read the posts, I've either already solved, or I'm willing to take any nuggets that come my way.

When I'm desperate, I look for any little crumb. I'm stuck on one now, and I'm actually wondering if it's the kind of puzzle where I'm going to have to google things or not. It would make a difference in my strategy, and whether or not I want to keep trying. (That's not a request for hints, by the way! I've already thrown in the towel.)

[Bird Lives]

Whem comments mention "construction" or especially "clever construction," I know to look beyond the meaning of the words in the long answers and to search the grid for other arrangements of letters related to those answers.