A vocabularyclept poem is a

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

which is formed by taking the words of an existing poem and rearranging them into a new work of literature. Vocabularyclept poetry was first proposed in 1969 by '' Word Ways'' editor

Howard Bergerson Howard William Bergerson (July 29, 1922 – February 19, 2011) was an American writer and poet, noted for his mastery of palindromes and other forms of wordplay. Work Bergerson's first volume of poetry, '' The Spirit of Adolescence'', was publ ...

. He took his little-known 1944 poem "Winter Retrospect", put all the words in alphabetical order, and challenged readers to arrange them all into a new poem. The challenge was taken up later that year by

J. A. Lindon James Albert Lindon ( – 16 December 1979) was an English puzzle enthusiast and poet specialising in light verse, constrained writing, and children's poetry. Lindon was based in Addlestone and Weybridge. His poems often won weekly newspaper com ...

, who, without having consulted Bergerson's original, produced an entirely different poem also titled "Winter Retrospect". Both poems are 24 lines long and contain 478 words, and have been subject to several literary and statistical analyses. Many vocabularyclept poems by Lindon and others appeared in later issues of ''Word Ways''. These and others are collected and discussed in various wordplay books by Bergerson and

David Morice Dave Morice (born September 10, 1946) is an American writer, visual artist, performance artist, and educator. He has written and published under the names Dave Morice, Joyce Holland, and Dr. Alphabet.Hedblad, p. 140. His works include ''60 Poetr ...

. A variation on the idea of rearranging an existing vocabulary into a poem was independently discovered by

Dave Kapell Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...

. His Magnetic Poetry kits consist of individual words—often related to a particular theme or topic—printed on small magnets which can be creatively arranged on a refrigerator or other metal surface.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite journal , last=Rogers , first=Ben , author-link=Howard Bergerson , date=February 1969 , title=Some Neglected Ways of Words , url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol2/iss1/4/ , journal= Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics , publisher=

Greenwood Periodicals Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, volume=2 , issue=1 , pages=14–19 {{cite journal , last=Lindon , first=J. A. , author-link=J. A. Lindon , date=May 1969 , title=The Vocabularyclept Poem, № 1 , url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol2/iss2/8/ , journal= Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics , publisher=

, volume=2 , issue=2 , pages=85–89 {{cite conference , title=CAMP: A Magnetic Poetry Interface for End-User Programming of Capture Applications for the Home , last1=Truong , first1=Khai N. , last2=Huang , first2=Elaine M. , last3=Abowd , first3=Gregory D. , date=2004 , publisher=Springer , book-title=UbiComp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing: 6th International Conference , pages=143–160 , location=Nottingham {{cite book , last1=Bishop , first1=Yvonne M., author1-link= Yvonne Bishop , last2=Fienberg , first2=Stephen E. , last3=Holland , first3=Paul W. , date=2007 , title=Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Applications , url=https://archive.org/details/discretemultivar00bish_667, url-access=limited , publisher=Springer , page
340
��342 , isbn=978-0-387-72805-6 {{cite journal , last=Eckler, Jr. , first=A. Ross , author-link=A. Ross Eckler, Jr. , date=May 1970 , title=Anagramming One Poem into Another , url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol3/iss2/7/ , journal= Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics , volume=3 , issue=2 , pages=86–90 {{cite encyclopedia , last=Eckler, Jr. , first=A. Ross , author-link=A. Ross Eckler, Jr. , editor-first=F. , editor-last=Mosteller , encyclopedia=Statistics by Example: Finding Models , title=The Similarity of Two Poems , url=https://archive.org/details/statisticsbyexa00most/page/75 , year=1973 , publisher=Addison-Wesley , location=Reading, MA , isbn=978-0201048797 , page
75–87
{{cite book , last=Morice , first=Dave , date=2007 , title=The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet: 104 Unusual Ways to Write Poetry in the Classroom and the Community , url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresofdral0000mori , publisher=Teachers & Writers Collaborative , chapter=Vocabularyclept Poetry , isbn=978-0915924448 {{cite book , last=Bergerson , first=Howard W. , date=1973 , chapter=Vocabularyclept Poetry or Mathematical Collaboration , title=

Palindromes and Anagrams ''Palindromes and Anagrams'' is a 1973 non-fiction book on wordplay by Howard W. Bergerson. Content Over a third of the book is devoted to the study and collection of anagrams. Of the 1169 anagrams Bergerson lists, most are sourced to the f ...

, publisher=Dover , page
20–39
, isbn=978-0486206646 Word play Genres of poetry

See also

References