Happy Poetry Month, Everyone!
My dear readers, I apologize for being so lax about posting lately, but to make it up to you, and hopefully provide inspiration for you to write more poems this April, I will be introducing to you today what I believe is a brand new invented poetic form: The Homonymization.
A homonymization is an experimental poetry form of my own invention, in which the entire poem is written using homophones – words sounding the same but having a different meaning and spelling. Because of this, the poem, at first glance, will appear to be totally nonsensical, but will make sense when either spoken aloud or sounded out in the reader’s head. Along with standard and familiar ones (such as “sail and sale” and “be and bee”), the homophones used can also be proper nouns or names (such as “Waring” substituting for wearing), foreign words (“oui” for “we”), and letters (“q” for “queue”). Also one word can represent two (“iamb” for “I am”) or two words one (“bee leave” for “believe”).
As an example, here is a homonymization I wrote, along with its “translation” printed in italics below:
Hour Sensored Whirled
Wee awl Liv inn eh sensored whirled,
R tolled watt two bee leave inn, watt two dew.
Wee dew knot no watts rite oar fare
Oar reel. Eye no your knot Abel two
Sea mi, oar here watt eye c’est,
Sew eye Hyde inn plane site
Waring cheep read shoos,
Weight four mourning lite
Four sum won, sum buddy
Two notis mi, sew eye no
Iamb reel.
Our Censored World
We all live in a censored world,
Are told what to believe in, what to do.
We do not know what’s right or fair
Or real. I know you’re not able to
See me, or hear what I say.
So I hide in plain sight
Wearing cheap red shoes,
Wait for morning light
For someone, somebody
To notice me, so I know
I am real.
So what do you think of the homonynization, folks? Is it a poetry form you’d like to try, or is it just too weird for your tastes? If you do decide to take up the challenge (I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the results), I’d love to see your homonymization, so please don’t be afraid to share.
Thanks so much for reading, and please enjoy the remainder of Poetry Month!
A wonderful invention Paul! It appears challenging, but there is room here for some real creativity. I love that it visually looks nonsensical and only becomes apparent in the phonetic verbalization. Too cool! You know I will give it a try at some point, but I can’t promise I will share it as failure is a real possibility.
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Thank you so much. Brad! I am pleased that you like this form If you do try it, I’d love to see your results, and don’t worry, when it comes to you and poetry, I don’t see how you can fail…
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Too weird for my tastes, I’m afraid. I really like the second version of the poem!
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Hehe, I can definitely understand that, Liz. Personally. my tastes in poetry does tend to run into the bizarre and unusual like the word babble if the Language School Poets (which influenced the creation of this form. I am very pleased that you like the translation of my poem.
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I vaguely remember studying the Language Poets in college. (Very vaguely!)
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That sounds like fun to try, but not at 11 pm at night. 🙂 If I do try, I will post it here in the comments. Very clever idea.
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Thank you so much, I do hope you try writing one, but at a more reasonable hour, and would love to see it…
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What a fascinating poetic form! Seems challenging but I may give it a try once my blogs settle down a bit.
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Thank you so much, Eugenia! If you do get a chance to write one, I’d love to read it.
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👍 Will do, Paul!
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Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
I THINK—I NEED TTO DTUDY THIS FORM DEEPLY!
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