Anyway, here is the Foreword to the collection ... just to whet (or destroy) your appetite ...
Foreword
Yes, here comes another one!
As some of you
readers of my recent volumes of light (very
light) verse know, I’ve been obsessed with words in these (perhaps too)
frequent collections of doggerel that now clog and clutter the servers at
Kindle Direct. In the past few years I’ve written about all sort of words—ones
that annoy, ones that are odd, ones that deal with animals, with madness … and
on and on.
In this newest
volume—Sound and Sense (and get
ready: A few months hence, there’s going to be a second volume on the same theme!)—I’ve focused on two sorts of
words: contronyms (words that have definitions that contradict each other—e.g.,
sanction can mean approve and disapprove)[i]
and homophones (words that sound the same but are not spelled the same—e.g., but and butt, heroin and heroine).
In my Daily Doggerel blog I’ve been posting
each day a little contronym/homophone ditty that plays with the
words-of-my-day. And because I’ve also linked Daily Doggerel to Facebook, my “friends” there have been able to
hone their scroll-but-don’t-pause-to-read skills—very necessary abilities in
these social-media days when we’re all overwhelmed with useless information.
(And I’ll confess: I’m a frequent abuser of Facebook and place many demands on
those foolish friends who risk their sanity and self-respect by reading my (too
many) posts.)
For this
collection (as I did for the others) I’ve consigned to hell’s fire a few pieces
which, on a second reading, clearly deserve—no, demand—incineration. (Perhaps someone else had written them?
Slipped them onto my blog site without my noticing? That’s the only explanation
I can think of?!) Missing dates in
the text will tell you which ones are now ash. (I “burned” them, of course,
only with the Delete key, not in hell. Even Satan his high standards for verse.)
I’ve also included
here what I call “Desultory Doggerel,” little snippets of verse about things I’ve
noticed the past several months—or experienced. Animals that have crossed the
road (or have failed to do so … RIP), people who have crossed my path, strange
ideas that have crossed my mind—these and other topics find their way into the
desultory doggerel and end up on Facebook and—now—in your Kindle.
Finally, I’ve also
included here what in earlier volumes I’ve been calling “wolferel”—a word I’ve
coined for lines that lie somewhere in that uncharted terrain (wasteland?) between
Doggerel and Poetry. These pieces have left Doggerel behind, have knocked
knocked knocked on heaven’s door—i.e., at the door of Poetry—but the
Gatekeeper, upon opening, has taken but one look (or whiff?) before slamming shut that Golden Gate, the wolferel visa
insufficient to impress the border authorities.
Howls of dismay at
the cruel moon.
—Daniel Dyer, September 10, 2016
[i] A
word that dates back only to 1962, says the Oxford
English Dictionary, whose definition is clear and simple: a word with two opposite or contradictory
meanings.
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