Daily Doggerel: Vol. VI

I went and did it again. I just uploaded to Kindle Direct (via Amazon) the sixth volume in my silly series of "verse" that I publish each day for my Facebook friends--including vocab poems (based on the word-of-the-day from my tear-off calendar) and Shakespeare couplets (I'm slowly working my way through summaries of all the Bard's plays).

Now, if you've got a Kindle, you're golden (unlike the poems). Just order it on Amazon for $2.99--cheaper than a complicated drink at Starbucks and far less fattening (or nutritious).

If you don't have a Kindle, you can still buy it on Amazon and read it on your computer or smart phone or tablet--as long as you've got the (free) Kindle app.

If you don't believe in doggerel, well, can't say that I blame you.

The title will not be available for a few hours, but here's a little preview--the Introduction:

Foreword

doggerel or dogrel  (daw-ger-uh  l, dog-er-)

adjective

1. a. comic or burlesque, and usually loose or irregular in measure.

    b. rude; crude; poor.

noun

2. doggerel verse.

— from dictionary.com 

And, somehow, I’ve arrived at a sixth volume of doggerel. (When am I going to get a life?) Like its five predecessors, this volume contains verse I wrote over the last three months each day for my Facebook friends—a quotidian task that somehow has never seemed odious to me. Perhaps it should.

As I did with the previous volumes, I read over all these newer pieces, discarding those that fail to reach my low standards. I’ve also arranged the selections thematically (see the table of contents) and have included the little ditty I wrote each day about the vocabulary word-of-the-day on my calendar as well as the couplets I’m doing each day about Shakespeare’s plays. (Most here deal with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) I also finished my little series of Body Parts Poems—which I’d begun in an earlier volume.

Here’s an oddity. I’m working through the Shakespeare plays in the order that he composed them (an order that’s not particularly certain). The two most recent ones have been King John and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Well, a couple of weeks ago my wife, Joyce, and I spent a week in Stratford, Ontario, gorging on plays (we saw eleven in six days). This is a feast we’ve allowed ourselves every summer for about fifteen years. Anyway, two of the Shakespeare plays on this year’s Stratford list? King John and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Cue theme music from The Twilight Zone.)

Perhaps the Bard is smiling somewhere? I doubt it. Not if he’s read any of these motley efforts of mine. Which, of course, he hasn’t. And I am relieved. I consider him a friend, and no one wants to disappoint a friend, right?

If so, then what have I been doing posting this stuff every day on Facebook?

Daniel Dyer

August 31, 2014