an assignment

It's poetry week in the course I'm currently taking. Poetry isn't even remotely my strong subject, but this exercise was one I actually enjoyed doing. We had to read several articles, but one by a fellow named John Fox, from the magazine Poets and Writers(May/June 2001) caught my attention.

In Fox's article, "Recovering Your Silenced Voice" he asks if we had a fourth-grade teacher who asked us about words we just enjoyed the sounds of. My grade four teacher was Mrs. Isfjord. She didn't ask whether we liked the sounds of words, but I remember her as a very kind woman. I realized when I read Fox's lines that there are a lot of words I like the sounds of. My list, a la Marylyn Krysl, a poet that Fox quotes, is as follows.

Say unctuous, ubiquitous, salutation,
say cinnamon, cardamom, say asana, yarnover,
say mudra, ebullient, beeswax,
say fabulous.
Say the Italian words for your husband:
oggi, Treviso, ciao, Padua, bongiorno.
The French words: say elastique
say banane, palais, tricotteur.
Say the chemical words: reflux, synthesis, reciprocal
say lachrymator but don't say it near an onion.
Say the names: Molly, Veronique, Montessori, Dorothy,
say in Italiano: Isabella, Beatrice (remember Il Postino?)
Now commonwealth, Interpol and armadillo, Salamanca.
Say nevertheless, lambaste, bombardment, unceasing and then
say rosary.
Let's look for an integral,
incorporate the ruthless Winnipeg draught.
Find a berth, don't eat a strawberry or a rambutan in February.
Purl while watching a ptarmigan in Stratford...or is it a cormorant?
(how could you get those mixed up?)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera.
finally, say sift, compartment, engorgement -- the leftovers?
Be gregarious
forever.

This is a very fun exercise, even if you don't turn it into anything other than a list. Find the words you like the sound of, the words that roll around in your mouth. Just think for five minutes, and suddenly you won't be able to stop your favourite words from invading your head.