Guest poem sent in by Ajit Narayanan
(Poem #1429) Winter Reigns Shimmering, gleaming, glistening glow-- Winter reigns, splendiferous snow! Won't this sight, this stainless scene, Endlessly yield days supreme? Eying ground, deep piled, delights Skiers scaling garish heights. Still like eagles soaring, glide Eager racers; show-offs slide. Ecstatic children, noses scarved-- Dancing gnomes, seem magic carved-- Doing graceful leaps. Snowballs, Swishing globules, sail low walls. Surely year-end's special lure Eases sorrow we endure, Every year renews shared dream, Memories sweet, that timeless stream. |
The most important criterion for good wordplay has always been 'transparency' -- how good the content is when it's viewed independent of the structure. I'm told that Georges Perec's book 'La Disparition', for example, garnered rave reviews from Parisian critics[1], who praised it as a modern masterpiece, many of them not realizing that Perec had composed the entire book without a single 'e'. I don't read French, however, and consequently, _my_ standard for transparency in wordplay is set by this poem by Mary Youngquist. An elegant, very readable and very naturally constructed poem which masks a surprisingly difficult structure that the poet has most skillfully imposed on it. Can you guess what it is? I wish I could find out more about Mary Youngquist. I've read only two of her works, one of them being this one, and have been very, very impressed. The other is a poem about California (sort of), which is part of this article (another ingenious exercise in wordplay, by the way; read it) [broken link] http://wordways.com/crazy.htm Any further information, or links to other works of hers, would be most appreciated. :ajitQ [1] [broken link] http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/X/ contains some, but you have to know French, of course. The answer: Each word -- including the title and the author's name -- begins with the last letter of the preceding word. Sounds like an easy constraint? -- try writing even one complete sentence that way and you'll realize the amount of skill it took to make this poem as coherent as it is. [Martin adds] Not the easiest typographic constraint to observe, even neglecting grammar, rhyme, equal line extents, scansion, name[1] etc. Craftsmanship, poetry - Youngquist's stanzas - sonorous, smooth - highlight them marvellously. [1] Nice extra.
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