In Aprill I Will Have Done What I Had Done Last April

Every April, for the past few, I've promoted the crazy idea of International Pwoermd Writing Month, a month in which members of a self-selected group of poets each writes at least one one-word poem a month. One of the contemporary masters of the form, someone who so often surprises me with his new ideas, is Jonathan Jones, lately of Brussels, but a citizen himself of the United Kingdom.

Last April, he not only participated in InterNaPwoWriMo, he also produced a little booklet in green (the color of spring) of the pwoermds he had created. and a few months later he sent me a copy, along with an unnecessary note excusing the delay. So I have now waited about half a year to actually write a few words about this book. Delay is what keeps the world moving.

He called this booklet "apri'll," because April will, and he opens the book with this epigraph from Octavio Paz

No one is a poet unless he has felt the temptation to destroy language or create another one, unless he has experienced the fascination of nonmeaning and the no less terrifying fascination of meaning that is inexpressible.

which is a good enough opening to a book of pwoermds, a book of new and reformulated words.

Since "apri'll" is such a small book, my commenting on even a few pwoermds constitutes uncovering a larger than usual percentage of the book, so I will chew only briefly on only a few pwoermds:

'lossom

The blossom is broken because it is not quite full, not quite blooming. That is how I take it, though I assume we could read it that the blossom has begun to drop its petals. But that doesn't fit with the theme of spring, and that would better be a blosso' (which doesn't work at all as well as a poem).

chimpanzed

Simply an American chimpanzee translated into a British chimpanzed. So it is merely a joke, but a joke about language, and one that requires some understanding of language use across dialects. And you have to avoid pronouncing it as a two-syllable word.

thumbrella

A beautiful little pwoermd about a tiny umbrella, maybe one used by a 

dwarful

which might be a small handful or might be an awful small thing.

kn&t

My favorite of these is the unpronounceable one, the one that is purely itself, the one that has tied its round circle of an o into a knot.

And for a few more I give you a green page from the book, which has only a green cover and white pages. I made it green so you could appreciate its vernal fecundity. And don't forget to appreciate his found pwoermds (and the wonderful bibliographic detail that accompany them).



ecr. l'inf.