CISRA Puzzle Competition 2007 - Solutions

This is the archive of the 2007 Puzzle Competition. Please visit the current competition site for information about the latest Puzzle Competition.

A.5 Turgid Streams

Intuitive leap: Each line of poetry can be transformed into a question, by locally anagramming sets of letters.

For example, the start of the first line of the puzzle is "How swathed". This can be partitioned into three short anagrams:

"How|swa|the|d..."
"Who was the d..."

Likewise, the whole poem can be partitioned such that each group of letters anagrams to a new word, to form a hidden message. Here is each line of puzzle text broken up into its anagrammable partitions:

How swathed in test of hating snow?
how|swa|the|dintest|of|hatingsnow
Who was the dentist of Washington?

This refers to George Washington, who is noted for having false teeth. His dentist was John Greenwood.

How versed I codeth thy roe of a tit, verily?
how|versedicod|eth|thyroe|of|atitverily
Who discovered the theory of relativity?

This one's straightforward: Albert Einstein.

Then code some sworn lake man,
the|ncodes|omeswornlak|eman
The second moonwalkers name?

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon.

I move to craft rising player's man up,
imove|tocra|ftris|ingplay|ersmanup
Movie actor first playing Superman?

Many actors have played Superman, but Christopher Reeve starred in the first Superman movie.

And tie robust one - maintain crab odor.
andtierobus|to|nemaintai|ncrabo|dor
Subordinate to inanimate carbon rod?

Probably the trickiest line to anagram correctly. The answer may be familiar to fans of The Simpsons (but is otherwise findable with a web search) - it's Homer Simpson.

At this point, we have a list of names:

John         Greenwood
Albert       Einstein
Edwin/Buzz   Aldrin
Christopher  Reeve
Homer        Simpson

The initials of their surnames spell out the solution to the puzzle - GEARS.