Repeating my first submission, from the comment within Dale’s post:
Brine
Spry
Sigh
Fear
Oomph
Sex
Seeping
Clocked
Annoying
Sane
And my second one, which I’ve been holding back to work on a bit:
Who flows,
knows,
phases,
cuts through…
sinks through.
Stays.
Settles.
Soaks through…
…new waves
dies.
Honk
Moo
Squeak
Roar
Quack
Hiss
Bellow
Bleat
Neigh
Chirp
Um
Er
Ah
Wait
Don’t
Sex
Sextet
Oats
None
Damn
I
four
one
can’t
count
and
don’t
amount
two
much
I have two so far, a kind of variation of the ounce dice trice in which I attempt a sentence.
I
die
trying
for
fire
sessions,
living,
late
entheo-
genesis.
When
do
the
sore
love
sex?
Never.
Wait—
fine,
then.
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.