Anyone looking for a weekend treat? Because we've got one fresh from Next Line, Please!
Dr. Lehman begins his column saying, "It can help the poet to think of language as a living thing that doesn’t stand still and that seems to have a mind of its own." Much like the colloquially "word vomit," or that meandering Freudian slip. He goes on to say that "to write poetry is not so much to play with language as to live the life of words." And you don't have to tell me twice, that the word-driven life practically writes itself.
This week, we will be working with anagrams. What's more, we will be making anagrams of our own names, unlocking the hidden secrets and treasures our markers may contain. Here's the prompt:
For next week, then, I propose that you make as many anagrammatic words as you can out of your name. From David I get:
Diva
Avid
Id
Did
I
Lehman yields:
He
Man
Male
Name
Am
Ha
Lame
Lean
Luna
Lane
Mane
Me
An
Hale
Mean
I typed the words in the order they occurred to me, itself a fact that might prove useful.
Once you have assembled such a list, write a poem in which every line contains at least one of the words (10 to 14 lines). As a rather extreme example, here’s this stab at a self-portrait in five lines:
That David is avid comes as no surprise,
But his diva days ended in luna time
When his very name seemed to mean
A lane to the land of the id. I did it;
I am he: lean, hale. Male. He man? Ha.
Deadline: Saturday, December 15, midnight any time zone. Visit the American Scholar's page to enter your candidate!
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