This volume we showcase three poems that play games with language systems in order to make observations about language use, starting with a work reminiscent of an Anglo-Saxon riddle in Diane Jackman’s Love Letter. Can you name her partner in crime and object of love before checking the answer at the foot of the page? Gill McEvoy then defines an amusingly onomatopoeic Irregular Verb before Sarah O’Sullivan closes with a neatly crafted point about poetry itself in Fibs.
Love Letter
Your leaves are ouvirandras.
They let in golden light turning
my fustian words to kincob.
Your words are never horrisonant –
though their meanings may be.
Let me be your kickie-wickie
and we shall commit verbicide
on quiet winter evenings.
What is the object of my love?
Irregular Verb
Shh-rink:
the swish of skates on the ice-rink,
ssshh
Shh-rank:
the boss is walking round the office,
sshhh
Shh-runk:
too many shrinks, I shink I’m zhdrunk,
ssshh.
Fibs
a
rhyme
is a
lie, old school
wolf in sheep’s clothing
a false promise of harmony
tidy
ends,
rhyme’s a
campaign speech
designed to deflect,
a neat package that if undone
could
spill
truths by
the thousands
Riddle Answer: Love Letter… to my dictionary