Here’s a warm-up kind of assignment for the new year. Recently on NPR, Daniel Pinkwater was interviewed about a book that is part of The New York Review Children’s Collection: Ounce Dice Trice by Alastair Reid (drawings by Ben Shahn). The book is a brief collection of odd words, giddy in its delight in usage and euphony.
One of the sections, from which the book takes its title, is about counting to ten. It gives a couple of alternatives to the boring old everyday “one two three”:
OUNCE
DICE
TRICE
QUARTZ
QUINCE
SAGO
SERPENT
OXYGEN
NITROGEN
DENIM
or
INSTANT
DISTANT
TRYST
CATALYST
QUEST
SYCAMORE
SOPHOMORE
OCULIST
NOVELIST
DENTIST
or
ARCHERY
BUTCHERY
TREACHERY
TAPROOM
TOMB
SERMON
CINNAMON
APRON
NUNNERY
DENSITY
You get the idea.
This led my brain back to Mason Williams’ poem, “How to count to from 1 to 10 in Spanish in English”:
Who knows
Those
Waves
What though
Sea cold
Said as they
Sedately
All chose
New wave way
Zeniths
Which in turn led me back to “The Aeronaut to His Lady,” a sonnet by Frank Sidgwick which consists of one word per line:
I
Through
Blue
Sky
Fly
To
You.
Why?
Sweet
Love,
Feet
Move
So
Slow!
So here’s the Assignment: write something inspired by these. Create your own list of counting words. Write your own bilingual counting poem. Write a sonnet with a bare minimum of words. Or a combination of any or all of the above.
Make them separate posts, and remember to tag yours with the L.10.1 tag.
So is no one interested in this at all? I have two submissions, but I consider it bad form to be the first—and possibly only—to offer a submission for one’s own Assignment.
I hope to contribute. Actually, I always hope to contribute, even when I don’t like the assignment. I like this one AND I hope to contribute. Soon. ish.
How’s this:
Brine
Spry
Sigh
Fear
Oomph
Sex
Seeping
Clocked
Annoying
Sane
My contribution was excised.
Or exists elsewhere. Out of the main loop. Merely as a supplement.