[Newspoetry] Gillespie Wins Gold in Men's Newspoetry

[Joe Futrelle]

Gillespie Wins Gold in Men's Newspoetry

Sydney, Australia (Associated Poets) -- U.S. Poet William Gillespie
earned a gold medal today in the first men's Newspoetry event at of
the 2000 Olympics.  Gillespie's suite of palindromic 20-consonant
calendelles about European fuel protests, written without using the
letter "e", caused the Norwegian judge to laugh uncontrollably, then
arbruptly burst into tears.  She gave Gillespie's poem a 9.893, just
above his combined score of 9.887, the highest ever awarded a Newspoet
in this event.

Gillespie's outstanding performance has given Team USA a much-needed
shot in the arm following rookie Joe Futrelle's disappointing
performance in the individual limerick event.  The nervous Futrelle
wrote haikus instead, which, although excellent, shaved entire points
off his score in an event where every point matters.  Returning
sestina medalist Dirk Stratton, having miraculously survived
pre-competition drug testing, is preparing to face South African
Newspoet Lionel Abrahams for a showdown of non-epic proportions (epic
poetry is on Thursday).

And tomorrow night, all eyes are on the USA's Mark Enslin, who
throughout the qualifying events has stubbornly refused to employ
persmissible slant-rhymes, costing him precious seconds in the
3-limerick relay.

In the women's event, top-ranked USA Newspoet Your Aunt Barbara is
purportedly training vigorously for next week's trials by chainsmoking
unflitered Pall Malls, drinking Sanka, and doing the crosswords in
back issues of USA Today.

--
Joe Futrelle
Editor-within-chief,
Newspoetry dot com