Well, the time has come to put this contest out of its misery. Interestingly enough, this puzzle (that I thought was the easiest to solve) was the least attempted so far...oh well. The solution, for those of you who care, is found by paying attention to the line "And now it's time for my game to start...you scope th'title should do." This should have led you to investigate the title of the contest which was "An Enigma"...the same title as a famous poem written by Edgar Allan Poe (his name is, incidentally, also hidden in the poem). Further investigation would have uncovered the fact that Mr. Poe had hidden a name within the poem by using the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, and so on. Were you to have gone through the same process with the contest poem, it would have revealed the message, "Check the second letters of every fifth word." From there, it was a simple matter to do as directed which would then give you the final instructions: "Responses should incorporate two numbers, all letters of the alphabet and the name of any country." All four respondents fulfilled these requirements and thus became eligible for the grand prize drawing. The first correct respondent was AlineM ...she'll be getting her two points as soon as I finish posting this message. One point is also being awarded to dichroic whose 11th hour entry struck me funny. Finally the ten point grand prize (ooh...ahh) goes (after the highly scientific method of assigning each respondent a number between 1 and four and having my daughter pick a corresponding card) to Maverick62 (copious applause and whistles). I hope y'all had fun with it. Given the poor turnout (in numbers, not in quality), I'm not sure if I'll be doing another puzzle anytime soon. Happy New Year everybody, and thanks to AlineM, peter, Maverick62 and dichroic for playing!