Wordbirds

For Mitch Wilson, fellow doggerelist—

With gratitude for 8^th grade, for Grease, for countless Facebook “Likes,” for enduring friendship.

Foreword

Words rhymes with birds. I’ve always liked that. It seems so sensible: Both can soar when they’re healthy. (Both can also suddenly fall out of the sky.) And over the years I’ve found more than a few occasions to rhyme the two in the doggerel I’ve composed.

As for this current project? A journey through the dictionary? I don’t know where the idea came from. Which reminds me: Years ago I read a Stephen King interview somewhere, and, replying to the question Where do you get your ideas? King said something like this: I don’t know. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.

I always kind of liked that—though I definitely would not have liked it had I asked that question. King’s royal reply is more than a tad snarky. He seems to be saying If there were a place where I go to find ideas for my books, why on earth would I tell someone else where it is?

Well, I’m not Stephen King, nor was meant to be, but I really don’t know where the idea for this current volume came from. It just sort of flew into my life. (See title.)

Once I got the idea, I modified it, so it became something like this: In my Webster’s Third, which sits on a stand in my study [see cover image], I will go to the first page for each letter and find a word that looks interesting—and (this is significant) it must be a word I don’t already know.

Confession: I cheated once. Vespal (of or relating to wasps). I already knew it, but I liked it and had an idea for some lines and rhymes, so I used it. (Whew! The release and relief of confession.)

Well, once I got through to letter Z, I decided I’d then go backwards: I’d take a word from the final page for each letter. So off I went again—Z to A—twenty-six more little poems.

And then, having completed that, I decided on a third and final trip through the dictionary, this time picking a word from the middle of each letter’s pages.

While I was writing these little ditties each day, I was occasionally writing other sorts of doggerel—things I’d seen or experienced or  thought about. Silly things, mostly. Many of these I posted on Facebook for my friends to ignore. I’ve put some of them here in a subsection called “Desultory Doggerel.”

I also, from time to time, wrote some of what I’ve previously called wolferel—verse that’s a bit more serious than doggerel but does not rise to the level of “real” poetry. Most of these I also posted on Facebook, where they sometimes occasioned comment but, more frequently, caused only accelerated scrolling. They’re also here in “Wolferel.”

An editorial note: While re-reading these pieces, I decided that some of them did not rise even to the sad level of doggerel. (Maybe I need another name for them? Jackalerel? Hyenaerel?) So I’ve cut them. This will explain some of the missing days on the calendar dates I post above each piece. I’ve lightly revised some others. (Notice: I didn’t say “improved.”)

All of which reminds me: There are few horrors more horrible than re-reading (and recognizing as a horror) something you once thought was decent. As the ghost of King Hamlet wailed to his dazzled, indecisive son, “O, horrible, O, horrible, most horrible!”