Surprising Advice on Solving Sudoku (page 3 of 4)

Poetry

Another surprise was the number of poems we received -- hundreds, in fact. Brandon Tucker of Connecticut explained why in the opening verse of his submission:

An essay was requested
But those are boring
If I write one for you
I assure you'll be snoring

Many of the poems we received were parodies of world-famous rhymes. For example, Teri Page of Missouri titled her entry "The Midnight Call of Sudoku" and started her entry with:

Listen all samurai and you shall hear
Of how I did Sudoku this previous year.

Rebecca Pepperman of Pennsylvania charmed us with her simple, childlike (in a good way!) rhymes, starting with:

Sudoku is great,
It is so much fun.
When I begin a puzzle
I start with number one.
I see where it fits,
I go through and through.
When there is nowhere left
I switch to two.

Lori Jirles revealed a more adult playfulness with her sequence of limericks, which began:

There once was a girl from Lore City,
Who thought she was sitting pretty.
She knew she would win
With the answers sent in,
But now she's here writing this ditty.

We also enjoyed the poem from Bruce LeRoy of Wisconsin, written in the voice of the numbers themselves. It started with:

We are the digits, and we like to play
We like to Sudoku, at least once a day
We watch you puzzle, but it's hard to gauge
If you're having fun, from the back of the page

Haiku was also a popular form; sequences of this Japanese poetry style came from far and wide. John Drebus of Michigan used haiku in a serious way, laying out a complete puzzle-solving method, fully illustrated, with his 11-haiku answer. His opening and closing haikus were:

The puzzle beckons.
Empty cells demand answers.
A true path is sought.
Fear not the journey.
The most complex Sudoku
Begins with one cell.

Finally, we appreciated the honesty of Brad Pletcher of Indiana, who told in poetry form of his working on Sudoku puzzles at 2 a.m. at an all-night restaurant, apparently far from home. We liked how it started, but howled at the ending:

'Twas a dark, rainy night,
Town was two miles ahead.
My stomach was growling,
My eyes turning red....
... Alas, I'm a truck driver,
No scholar am I,
But ten grand would make me
A happier guy!

• • Mind & Body

• Best Tips for Doing Sudoku
• 9 bits of advice from the first Reader's Digest Super Samurai Challenge.
• 
• Getting Started on Sudoku
• If you are new to Sudoku, welcome to one of the most popular puzzles in the world!
• 
• KenKen Puzzles
• Invented by a Japanese teacher, Tetsuya Miyamoto, the KenKen puzzle adds another layer of challenge by introducing math to the traditional Sudoku.
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