Welcome to the Wheedle challenge page!

What challenge? Well, in March 2022 there was a FaceBook call-out for Wordle-ophile poets. 

Lots replied. Many were already tackling Wordle, Wordle 2, Quordle, and even Nerdle on a daily basis.

But they hadn’t yet tried ... Wheedle. Those people are the Wheedle pilot group.

They read the Wheedle rules on Eddie Gibbons’ website. (In fact, this whole idea germinated in the head of E. Gibbons.)

Then, over three days, they wheedled. The results are on this page, most recent first.

All end with the winning word, but they take many routes to get there. 

If you’d like to take a crack at this yourself, go ahead.

Share on Twitter or FaceBook, using hashtag #wheedlexxx (xxx = number of corresponding Wordle) and/or just #wheedle to join the throng.

Wheedles day 3: 27 March, 2022

TWODLES

*
There weren’t any! This tells you something.

THREEDLES (HAIKUDLES)

*
She advertised rates
for carvings in ebony
(she used epoxy).

Carl Tomlinson

*
Bidding trees adieu
Scarcity of wood, resin’s epoch
Discovery of epoxy. 

Hema

*
First I went for ‘taxed’.
‘X’ and ‘E’ yellow ... so ... ‘exile’?
Nope. It’s ‘epoxy’!

E. T. Michie

*
Heat or eat needs coins
Today’s cost of living trope
Broke! Send epoxy

Nancy Somerville

*
Pavarotti’s voice,
his Nessun Dorma, enjoy,
strong as epoxy.

Brenda Conn

*
all through the party
I really was that soppy –
stuck like epoxy

Duncan Gillies MacLaurin

FOURDLES

*
I must be thick as the proverbial brick,
my grey cells an iota short of quota.
I do not love thee,Wordle. Thou canst shove
thy slipshod orthodoxy. What! – Epoxy?

Ann Drysdale

*
The sign said ‘Proceed with a cautious tread
speed will evince a fall, cause you to wince’.
The layout was novel, with hills, a stone hovel,
a fleet of boxy cars made from resin epoxy.

Elisabeth Sennitt Clough

*
Naming your mite is a fright to get right
the options confound, abound in a mound:
would Rose cause woes only therapy could dis-close?
Will Roxy be unorthodox-y or cohere, like epoxy?

Nikki Robson

*
It was a lot to pay for a yacht.
All in the priory grew fiery.
The fishpond boy was forced to enjoy
patching his poxy coracle with epoxy.

Robbie Burton

*
A fixer-upper seemed a lark but turned out stark:
there was nothing novel about living in a hovel!
When all they did was moan I got on the phone – 
found someone to act as a proxy and bodge it with epoxy.

Mike Farren

*
Do not ape this talk of grape,
be falsely proud of terroir and cloud.
Instead savour honey, laugh, admire the peony
Be present not proxy, let love be your epoxy.

Claire Urquhart 

*
My life’s bane is my brain
cliché floats aside a trite quote
I lose, sanity slips like flat shoes
my moxie acts as a proxy for epoxy.

Jo Gilbert

*
Whenever I dies, rest assured I will arise
for always the boy will make a fit decoy.
While you get funny with your gooey honey,
I’ll fix me to my doxy with some fishy epoxy.

Richard Skinner

*
No love boat, no cash float,
no top drawer, no offshore,
(my heart-string’s a low G). No love heart emoji,
no stand-in, no proxy. We stick, like epoxy. 

Jayne Stanton

QUINDLES

*
Sometimes in a queer dream,
when slumber’s my only sense,
I elect you leave, evict
snoring you with my elbow,
but you’re sticky, like epoxy.

Jill Munro

*
Pick me, precious prickly petal!
You perverse pickle, vixeny viper,
quick - climb into my coupé,
prink up. Our road opens,
epic, foxy, flying from epoxy.

Natalie Shaw

*
When cold water creates steam,
when bloodless bodies are gored,
when quarrelling couples must elope –
blame this barmy post-truth epoch
and apply tenacious twaddle epoxy.

Clare Best

*
He got my poem ‘Sutra’
quite, quite, quite, quite wrong.
Now all his Twitter flock
think I’m a dim diode
and my poem is (e)poxy

Eddie Gibbons

*
He heard
She saw the fume, the plume
Quite spoiled, we spent
Ages, aeons, an epoch
Mixing that epoxy

Donald Spy

CRAPSEY CINQUAIN

*
I meant
to show my poise
through DIY. Decoy
deployed but the glue was ropey,
(e)poxy.

Andy Jackson

*

Punk quiff like a crest,
dab hand with a blade,
she can’t spare a penny.
Her spell in the pokey
sticks to her like epoxy.

Hilary Menos

*
Abruptly, you answered me — Adios!
Quickly, I rearranged my route,
excluding eros, endeavouring to enjoy
my exclusive trip, night’s ebony
sky empty of love’s epoxy.

Jennifer Grigg

SEXTLES

*
That horny Time Team bloke she loves
whose ancient moated spring by Thorn
joy for paleo finds awoke.

Hard latterly though to emote,
or such orthodoxy enjoy
with bones bonded by epoxy.

Debbie J. Jones

*
He is not exactly in the first flush
and has a habit with socks he can't break —
never takes 'em off. He won't be cowed,

wears them in BED! No matter how high the tempo
he fights in socks knee-high. His friends opine
that he's gone to Mariupol in socks, he
			sticks them on with epoxy. 

Nell Nelson