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Word Ways

Abstract

I have long ruminated over the problem of finding a logological form of composition as challenging and appealing as the palindrome, but in which (unlike the palindrome) any word could be used. The ideas that occurred to me all seemed deficient in one way or another. The logological interest of vocabularyclepts (anagramming the words of one poem into another) is dependent upon the existence of the parent poemfrom which they are made, and is nonexistent without them. Word-unit palindromes are an attractive possibility, but the composer must be resigned to the fact that "and the" implies "the and", to give but one trivial example of the many unpleasant limitations imposed by this form. As for using anagrammatical techniques for generating poetry ab initio, the logological principle governing such compositions lacks ready visibility, and this, I feel, may often be a definite minus from the point of view of reader appreciation.

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