Remarks from final judge Jendi Reiter
Thanks to everyone who entered our 24th annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. The news in 2025 doesn't give us much to laugh about, except in a maniacal sort of horror-movie way. We're grateful for the comic relief that our 5,060 contestants provided.
First-round screener Lauren Singer shortlisted about 150 entries from which I selected our prizewinners and finalists. A number of you confessed an inability to feed or dress yourselves without comical mishaps, which makes it all the more impressive that you were able to press "submit" without setting your computer on fire (I hope). Some protested demeaning workplace conditions by imagining scenarios that would get you kicked out of a Wendy's. Others reworked the gender roles in fairy tales and literary classics.
Though this year's first-prize winner was immediately obvious, the remaining poems named here were in a very tight race. Why might I leave a poem at the finalist level? Sometimes, because we'd seen this genre of humor many times before; or some politically cringey lines or concepts found their way in; or when read aloud, it became evident that the poem went on a bit too long. Regardless, every one of the winners and finalists should be proud that their work stood out from such a crowded field.
Our Winners
First-prize winner Jeff Carter's "There Was an Old Woman" retells the plot of the nursery rhyme as an epic poem in the style of Paradise Lost, complete with footnotes citing imaginary scholarly sources to explain its supposed deep meanings. It's a popular technique among our entrants to wring humor from the incongruity between banal subject matter and flowery language, like a plastic toothpick embellished with diamonds. Carter's entry stood out because it sustained the elegant verse style smoothly throughout the long poem, capped off with a Dorothy-Parker-esque rejection of the whole gambit in the final couplet.
Julia Lichtblau's second-prize poem, "The Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 1939 (Revised)", is a curio cabinet of quirky and suggestive work specialties from a bygone era. The poem puts these colorful characters in conversation with one another, as if in a union hall, where the one thing they have in common is their resistance to being made obsolete by management.
Third-prize winner AJ Layague returns to the Wergle winners' circle with "The Three Muscatels Go to the Races", a follow-up to last year's Honorable Mention poem about three madcap, liquor-loving old ladies who are constantly plotting to break out of their nursing home for adventures. This time, they tangle with a mobster who's doping the ponies. Pray for him.
Honorable mentions found laughs in such topics as the bureaucratic nightmare of correcting foreign identity documents, a woman's progress from bridal garter to compression hose, gender-expansive children's toys, a twist on the dragon-princess-knight love triangle, and a titillating encounter in a convenience store bathroom. These poems stood out for having a strong central concept and following it through with focus and skill. We awarded two extra honorable mentions beyond the promised ten.
Our next contest is open through April 1, 2026, with a top prize of $2,000. Unlike speech in America, the Wergle Flomp contest will always be free.
Read all the winning entries.
See our press release about the winners of this contest.
See our current contest guidelines.
