Archives for March 2012

It would have been Dr. Seuss’ 108th birthday last week (2nd March 2012), if he hadn’t died at a perfectly reasonable age for that activity in 1991.
Lots of people did wonderful things to celebrate the fact that he wasn’t 108, presumably because they like 2²x3³ or the fact that like Bart Simpson, Theodor Giesel was born in Springfield – just earlier.
To be honest, I don’t know, but I read a really annoying article in the New Yorker that seemed to be exactly what Theodor Giesel was not – pompous, ostentatiously learnèd and overly fond of italicised French and Latin.

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You might notice it’s not written in the structure of the title.
You might get out more. I’m just saying.

“Rhymed anapaestic dimeter” he said
I’ve got rhymed anapaestic di-thing in my head !
This pestilent prosody runs through my brain.
from my head to my dimetric feet this refrain
goes on pulsing, convulsing and bouncing around,
demonic, these phonics, they pound out their sounds
like trains tritter-trattering over a track.
Anapaests are just dactyls that read from the back.
A dimeter’s simply a line with two feet
like drawing a stickman that’s not quite complete.
And this counting of syllables isn’t as fun
as bumping along with them one lump by one –
besides I prefer to be metricly loose
(and remember that Seuss rhymes with Joyce and not noose)
So if someone takes your verse and tries to dissect it
I suggest – have a tantrum – why not go apoplectic ?
and tell them this rhyming was writ with aplomb
and it’s best if it goes tiddley-om-tiddley-pom