[click to enlarge]
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The web of words
Caught in the web of words –
The elements of editing,
The grammar of living –
I may be some time.
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I almost included this title at line 2, but I felt it would be too harsh.
This is the eighth ‘bookmash’ I’ve posted. Numbers 1–7 are here.
Thanks to the authors: K. M. Elisabeth Murray, Arthur Plotnik, David Cooper, and Francis Spufford. Artist Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project was my original inspiration.
Good one Stan!
I was by chance just reading about Captain Oates today, while hunting down all of the people mentioned in a single paragraph of Sayers’s introduction to Dante’s Inferno. I trust you will not be vanishing without trace any time soon, however! We-uns need our Bierce a while longer.
Jams: Thank you!
John: I don’t plan to disappear outright, but to ease off blogging for a short spell in order to concentrate on more pressing duties.
Blogging’s in the blood
For those who try
To turn away
And buzz elsewhere
But then return to scratch
That webzy itch.
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I know.
XO
WWW
Talking about a web of words, have you heard about the right-wing conspiracy to make “refudiate” an actual word?
WWW: Thank you for the fine verse!
I have no plans to buzz elsewhere
Although I’m sure to tweet,
But duty called, I answered back,
And must delay the blogging beat.
Jude: Refudiate has been in use since 1925, if not earlier. It is a word.
That rocks. I’m going to play this game when I get home to my bookshelf. Then maybe we can have an internet bookmash slam. Like a poetry slam, only geekier.
demurelemur: It’s a lot of fun. I’d be glad of an excuse to do another, but it will require some burrowing in boxes. Let me know when you’ve bookmashed!
Yes, that rocks. It’s so extraordinary to read someone’s bookselves as you walk past ; a poem in progress, as time goes by, mixed with new scents, colours and conversation.
I realise I wrote “bookselves” instead of “bookshelves”, which is great, as it illustrates my feeling perfectly : reading books’titles is reading yourself, or someone else’s self, somehow.
Alice: That’s a lovely way to describe it, and bookselves is an illuminating typo. Roving over other people’s book collections lets us peek into unpredictable other worlds.
[…] but some have been explicitly linguistic, e.g. Evolution: the difference engine, Forest of symbols, The web of words, Ambient gestures, and Cat and Mouse […]
[…] others are The Accidental Grammar, Unlocking the Language, The Name of the World, Evolution: The Difference Engine, Forest of Symbols, Ambient Gestures, and The Web of Words. […]
[…] Some of these books and authors have featured before. You can browse the full archive of book spine poems, which also includes links to other people’s. Or join in, if you take a notion. […]