Dr. Alphabet Unmasked: Inside the Creative Mind of David Morice

by Joye Chizek and Thomas Walz

The man behind the Dr. Alphabet mask is David Morice. With humor, education, and a guiding muse, he has lived an extraordinary life, pushing the edges of known poetic and artistic possibilities. He is a local legend in Iowa City and throughout Iowa - best known as Dr. Alphabet, educating children, seniors and citizens about poetry through his poetry marathons and Poet in the School and with Senior Programs. He created Poetry Comics, mastered the art of WordPlay, co-founded the Actualist Poetry Movement and created the largest and smallest books held in the permanent collection of the University of Iowa Libraries...but few people know the man beneath the brightly lettered top hat. This is the story of David Morice - writer, poet, son, father, sibling, illustrator, educator and performance artist - as told in a touching conversation between a pragmatic professor and David's Muse of Comedy Thalia. This is also the story of a lost generation of mostly men now retirement age who grew up without the advantages of diagnosis and treatment. This book was written with love and tells the story of this different child hrough his life now at 67. It shows his development, his inner thoughts, dissapointments as well as the depth of his talents unleased. Like many men his age he had never heard of the autism spectrum...aware just that he was somehow different. This book is at once sad, happy, filled with facts and 130 illustrations and photos and tells in a surprising way the true story of a man who used his prolific creativity, artistic savant and insatiable imagination to survive many challenges, turn them inside out, giving back to the world art, poetry, and mirth as only he could imagine them.

148 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2013