My Latest Reading

     I have bought a new book. 

    Isn't it beautiful?

    

    My sister Sharon told me that when she was in college and had to develop a project for an academic paper, she suggested to her advisor that she read the dictionary.

    What a fabulous project! 

    But, she went on, her advisor frowned on the idea. He wanted a plan. Sharon said, "I want to know what would happen if I read the dictionary. Let's just start the project and see where it goes."

    Just imagine where it would go! Obviously it would lead to an improved vocabulary, even if she remembered only a small fraction of the new words she learned. Think of the many languages she would discover had contributed to English. And the fascinating etymologies she would learn—the vagaries of English pronunciations—the proportion of technical terms to everyday words—the obsolete words that were really too good to have been lost. The beauty of language. How long it would take to read the dictionary. Which letters had the most beautiful or unusual or obsolete words. And no telling what else. That was the beauty of the project.

    He would have none of it. She had to come up with another topic.

    What an opportunity lost. I've half a mind to do it myself. As it is, I've been challenged by a friend to write a poem based on a new word every day. So far the poems aren't very good, but the words elicit a lot of fun. Here is an example.

A Family of Artists

(Daedal: artistic, skillful. From Daedalus, Greek artificer of mythology)

 

My brother is good with wood.

My son is daedal with metal.

My mother was smart with art.

One sister paints like a saint

the power of flowers.

The other, a quainter painter,

is better with letters

adored and adorned.

I am absurd with words.

I make mazes with phrases

that leap or creep

all twisty and cvrispy

or steep into sleep.

But, however clever,

in the end I pen

a verse. Terse.