Mess Around With Words

It happened again. I tuned into C-Span and listened to a political speech peppered with malaprops, spoonerisms, non sequiturs, and a boatload of mispronunciations. It’s terrifying, and yet I have to laugh. The word-salad tossed about at political rallies reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical storybook poem, “Jabberwocky.”

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
     Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
     And the mome raths outgrabe.
          ~ Lewis Carroll, opening to "Jabberwocky" 

Politics aside, nonsense language is fun, playful, and musical. Writing with invented words can be a way to break through creative blocks, express the inexpressible, and rediscover a childlike bliss in silliness.

The avant-garde poet Bernadette Mayer (1945 - 2022) took language on a joy ride, writing wild lines like this: “once upon a time, every vowel was an ‘e,’ so there! thes wes et the begenneng of teme & nebedy noticed et yet. en fect et wes fen. when peeple ferfet te heve fen they mede these ether vewels, so whet the feck?” (Bernadette Mayer, from Milkweed Smithereens, New Directions Press)

During a workshop at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY, Bernadette challenged us to write our own Jabberwocky poems. I will never forget the laughter! Our first task was to generate a vocabulary of neoglisms (invented nonsensical words) and other types of mangled language.

1.  Portmanteau. Merge the sounds and meanings of two different words. For example, Lewis Carroll combined lithe and slimy to create the single word, slithy.

2. Onomatopoeia. Invent words that suggest sounds, such as kuplunk. 

3. Malaprops. Use an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound. Instead of take for granted, write take for granite.

4. Spoonerisms.  Switch letters around to make new words. Butterfly might become flutter by.

I’m a master of mispronunciations and also slightly dyslexic, so compiling nonsense words proved fairly easy. But how to turn gobbledygook into lines that make any kind of sense?

Here’s the secret: Steal.

For early drafts of my Jabberwocky poem, I stole (borrowed) sounds and rhythms from Sylvia Path’s poem, “Daddy.” My poem is comedy skit. Plath’s is a heart-wrenching, angry rant. Yet her opening, “You do not do, you do not do / Any more, black shoe” became a scaffolding for my lines: “You fa ox fa, you fa ox ga / sea ahhh, how proof you?” The words make no sense, yet when I read my jabberwocky at open mics, listeners say they know exactly what I mean. (The full poem is included in the sample poems below the prompt.)

Choose a piece of your own writing or a well-known text such as the Pledge of Allegiance, My Country 'Tis of Thee, a Bible passage, or a famous poem. Erase several (or many) key words:  nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives. Replace them with neologisms (words you invent) and other types of mangled language. 

Read your poem aloud. Tweak the nonsense to echo the rhythm and emotion of the original words, and/or to suggest new meanings. Leave a comment to share your experience . . . and post some of your own jabberwocky!

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In Which I Try to Leave My Husband
but Cannot Find the Words
You fa ox fa, you fa ox ga
sea ahhh, how proof you?
In catch I jump slap like a rack,
my dradda hours, all sticks and pikes,
& never once did you zoo-hoo.
Loggaminy, I fooze for you, yes
fooze to the seeraxel sky
& still you cog lockness—you
with your rockfelter, you
with your gatterknucklelicks—
tax as a pretzel jail. Loggaminy,
there's a rock in your sit pit matt,
all pimple-ick & clench, a frog
in your kick—what did I ever milk
in your monkey pee jaw?
Loggaminy, I sickly to la gat you,
I pan shagget you, I sickly nan—
tit toe. You can gurdle to your mauve
for all I mew—Loggaminy, loggaminy,
you duperquack, I'm jah.
          ~ Jackie Craven, The Massachusetts Review, Vol. LX, No. 1

Better or Worse 
Daily, the kindergarteners
passed my porch. I loved
their likeness and variety,
their selves in line like little
monosyllables, but huggable—
I wasn't meant
to grab them, ever,
up into actual besmooches or down
into grubbiest tumbles, my lot was not
to have them, in the flesh.
          ~Heather McHugh (read full poem)
[anyone lived in a pretty how town]
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
          ~ E. E. Cummings (read full poem)

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“With Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Star Trek as her muses, Jackie Craven subverts time... WHISH is a triumph of a book!"  —DENISE DUHAMEL, author of Second Story