The poet's foreword says he began all this on one fine day. It must have been finer than morning in an adjacent state by the looks of the result. What a sweep! What a breadth! What a memory! Who's left out here? Nobody I know. Virginia is 475 miles long but averages half that, which means here we have about one page per mile of her right across. He cautions that a reading voice with the proper pronunciation of "Hanover" and "Henrico" is advisable.
THE POLECAT PRIZE
RAN OFF ALL OTHERS
Some versifier came and sowed
many a thunderation ode.
This got the Golden Polecat Prize,
the one that draws the market flies,
awarding a chief excellence
that chases all the others hence;
puts to shame and in the shade
the Armadillo Accolade,
and that eternal charnel foist
so-called the yearly critics' choist.
It strands our thunderation moot
what's really worth a second hoot.
For some 'twill always be roast beef,
but, after that, Virginia leaf.
