We Called, and You Delivered

Washington Post readers love haiku, and everybody loves pizza, so it was no surprise that our call for pie-ku entries received more than 400 submissions. Many of them didn't rise above the likes of "ooey, gooey, yum," but plenty of the three-line, 17-syllable verses possessed simple, punchy turns of phrase that in one way or another captured the essence of pizza.

We turned to former poet laureate Robert Pinsky to sift through 50 finalists and pick three winners plus honorable mentions. Besides being a true populist poet, Pinsky has unassailable pizza cred: "I thought at first that I had to decline judging this contest, because my standards are too high," he wrote in an e-mail. "I am from New Jersey, after all! And not only New Jersey, but Monmouth County, home of the legendary Freddie's." As soon as he started reading, though, he rose to the challenge with gusto.

Winners, Pinsky's justification and their prizes are:

First Place

For a nice simile, a play on "rising" and the vivid final image:

Rising discs of dough

Tossed, twirled, like small planets on

A one arm axis

-- Donna Adler, Potomac

Adler, 53, a software developer, will receive our grand prize: a personalized pizza-making lesson with Pizzeria Paradiso chef-owner Ruth Gresser.

Second Place

For the regional interest of wittily adapting a Washington phrase for the last line:

Left-over pizza

Still tastes just great they say. But