With the invention of the paradelle form by poet Billy Collins and the furtherance of the paradelle in Theresa M. Welford’s The Paradelle: An Anthology (Red Hen Press, 2005), a new hoax has entered poetry’s domain. However, while somewhat similar to Warner’s hoaxes, the paradelle hoax is in many ways unique, and uniquely problematic—though increasingly interesting.

Originally published in Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing and used with permission.