It’s true, you’re right; there is no rhyme.
The effort is a waste of time.
I happily concede defeat.
But oranges were made to eat,
And not to rhyme; I find it more enj-
oyable to eat the orange.
— James H. Rhodes
Poems
Found Art
George Herrick notes this oddity in his 1997 commonplace book: The record of this U.S. congressional hearing on dirigible disasters contains an inadvertent poem — the encoded weather report for April 3, 1933:
Washington numoil nihilist radnell deadly wabash.
Titusville sanno reflect unripe turfs.
Harrington bonfire gecko unfold.
George felger naked neggins.
Pas roofage gedby gafol.
Havana sorrow mabin caramel.
Father safable oak barfee rogue.
Wichita nineveh mulberry somnific cupsail.
Doucet nightfall naked gargarize birds.
Galveston sirup gullish sacred cupsail.
Sound narford naked ungear seemly.
Antonio surrogate fabella sausage cunette.
Davenport ridgy reflow feugar needs consort.
Birmingham simulate subjoin formosa faints.
Buffalo nightfire ribard gummut gently.
Evansville romulus seahog femme mends control.
Memphis similar suburb gammon medlar wired catsup.
Detroit negative rabate fengone miley currency.
Indianapolis regent seabate formal gently catsup.
Nashville samuda sabula ginmill mexico congregate.
Columbus rugate mallet farmable feline.
Herrick writes, “This particular code has literary flair and one wants the rich prose to read on.”
Orthography
A right-handed writer named Wright
In writing write always wrote rite
When he meant to write write.
If he’d written write right,
Wright would not have wrought rot writing rite.
— Anonymous
“The Farmer’s Life”
The farmer leads no E Z life,
The C D sows will rot,
And when at E V rests from strife
His bosom will A K lot.
In D D has to struggle hard
to E K living out,
If I C frosts do not retard
His crops, there’ll B A drought.
The hired L P has to pay
Are awful A Z too;
They C K rest when he’s away,
Nor N E work will do.
Both N Z cannot make to meet,
And then for A D takes
Some boarders, who so R T eat,
That E no money makes.
Of little U C finds this life,
Sick in old A G lies;
The debts he O Z leaves his wife,
And then in P C dies.
— Stenography, January 1887
“The Last Bard of Dixie”
South Carolina poet J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901) was widely mocked for this terrible couplet:
Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer —
She never was much given to literature.
He complained,
Oh you critics! — If an author errs in a single line,
That line you’ll surely quote,
And will give it as a sample fair
Of all he ever wrote.
But he was bad everywhere:
On her beautiful face there are smiles of grace
That linger in beauty serene,
And there are no pimples encircling her dimples
As ever, as yet, I have seen.
His complete works are here.
Limerick
Why Not?
From a letter from English scholar Walter Raleigh to Mrs. F. Gotch, July 2, 1898:
Doe you lyke my newe phansy in the matere of Spelynge? I have growen wery of Spelynge wordes allwaies in one waye and now affecte diversite. The cheif vertew of my reform is that it makes the spelynge express the moode of the wryter. Frinsns, if yew fealin frenly, ye kin spel frenly-like. Butte if yew wyshe to indicate that thogh nott of hyghe bloode, yew are compleately atte one wyth the aristokrasy you canne double alle youre consonnantts, prollonge mosstte of yourre vowelles, and addde a fynalle ‘e’ wherevverre itte iss reququirred.
A later poem:
Wishes of an Elderly Man, Wished at a Garden Party, June 1914
I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one
I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!
Self-Described
Long-short-short, long-short-short
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don’t have the time.
— Roger L. Robison
“A Terrible Infant”
I recollect a nurse call’d Ann
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up, and kiss’d the pretty lass:
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, “Aha!
When I can talk I’ll tell Mamma.”
— And that’s my earliest recollection.
Subtext
William Browne’s 17th-century poem “Behold, O God!” forms a sort of symbolic acrostic. The text can be read conventionally, scanning each line from left to right, but the letters shown here in bold also spell out three verses from the New Testament:
- Luke 23:42: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
- Matthew 27:46: “O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
- Luke 23:39: “If thou art the Christ, save thyself and us.”
The three embedded quotes represent the three figures crucified on Golgotha, and the “INRI” at the top of the middle cross stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM — Latin for “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).