Seventy Years - Two Crosswords
David Astle
March 09
Yeah, right, as if we’d make an everyday crossword. Isn’t this a literary magazine? So here’s your grid, but as for the clues, two different sets are buried within the two snippets that follow: The Cryptic Story and The Straight Story.
That’s right—you have a choice of clues. If you don’t get the gibberish of cryptic crosswords, then tackle the orthodox clues hiding in The Straight Story. Or maybe you like your puzzles with a twist? So celebrate Meanjin’s seventy years by wrangling The Cryptic Story’s clues.
In both cases, the words seventy and years are offered as unclued footholds. Importantly, the twenty other words to enter (while owning the same grid) comprise different answers.
Don’t panic. We’re not sadistic. Whichever style you choose, you’ll find the twenty clues are given in italics, with no two clues directly beside each other. Saying all that, the clues are in random order with only the answer lengths provided. (Just beware that one answer in the Cryptic puzzle is a familiar acronym, while the Straight version includes a two-word phrase.)
The best way to make a start is to choose your preferred flavour and see how many clues you can solve on first reading. Next, speculate where those answers may fit in the grid. Keep that routine going, working between story and grid, and you’ll soon be making headway. Neither puzzle is a snap, but the prize of publication should make everything worthwhile.
Yes, to win your place in a future Meanjin, you first need to complete either grid, and then (just to confirm your accomplishment) sprinkle the twenty-two correct answers—including seventy and years—into a lavish literary piece of your own. (Feel free to enter The Cryptic Story and/or The Straight Story to give yourself a greater chance of winning, though only one entry per category please, to be sent in by April 1, 2010).
A sonnet? Some hiphop grunge? A Jacobean Tweet, or postmodern doggerel. Whatever mode flushes your commode, so long as those twenty-two answers appear in the mix and you keep things down to a 500-word limit.
The winners are the readers who best execute the challenge in the eyes of the jury. In addition to publication, the winners will also receive a year’s subscription to Meanjin.
So read on. Cryptic or Straight—either story awaits your wits. See if you can separate print from hint and may the shrewdest prevail. Solutions will be posted on the website on – of course – April Fool’s Day.
The Cryptic Story
As editor of Livid Cuckoo (3), I’ve seen some heartsick literature etc. (4) cross my desk.
You’ll always cop the esoteric. One macabre American author, close to grim verse (4), expressed her anger about worries of the Quixote genre (10), which I found a trifle morose. Another diatribe, where a no-name coffee satirist discussed (5) the rise of decaf, could hardly be identified as illuminated writing (3).
Your modern writer, I find, seldom tries literary analysis (6) of any heft. They’d rather play the fool, writing the bigger picture (7), or contrive journalistic profiles of Steve Irwin cavorting about (10), instead of producing a life story burning in our heads (3) or ever attempt to regularly doodle a lyric tribute (3).
In one story, entitled Circle Bed By Lake (7), I wasn’t sure whether I was reading about a famous place in river grass (7) or some wild weekend in Saab plant of Australia (7)!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m beginning to support grave-sounding screenplay (6) if the imagery lingers. I don’t object to any society sect starting off clean (7) with experimental prose. Yet this mag network’s sound courage (5) relies on strong writing.
Remember, in case you submit to Cuckoo, don’t bother saying half-tosh, saying (5) this or that romance changed your life. I’d rather read a beach story and loudly get the ocean (3) sighing between the lines. So pick your best piece and send it along. Bribery won’t work, nor will any surreptitious offers to ’ave sex with the judge (3)!
The Straight Story
Poetry without rhyme (5,5) is like a story (4) with no literary argument (5). You can’t have literature, say (3), hoping to articulate our culture’s core spirit (5), the sort (5) you read in this journal (7), if the idea (7) is plagued by emotional spasms (4) for a vast amount of time (3).
Nonetheless (7), the editor officially recognises (7) that any piece is an intricate network (3). Whether writers are proceeding via lengthy argument (10), or exploring drama’s flipside (6) with an outburst of inspiration (3), poetry and prose can illuminate our highest and lowest parts (6) as humans.
‘Give us excellence!’ we shout (3). Make our brief stay (7) on this earth a truly distinct period (3).
Send all entries, with your contact details to:
Meanjin Quarterly
187 Grattan Street, Carlton
Victoria 3053, Australia
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