EUNOIA

"Eunoia," quoth the Wikipedia, "is the shortest English word containing all five main vowel graphemes. It comes from the Greek word εύνοι&alpha which means well mind or beautiful thinking."

Eunoia is also the title of a book of, well, poems, by Christopher Bök. The following excerpt should more than amply explain our collective interest in the significance of the aforementioned:

Midspring brings with it singing birds, six kinds, (finch, siskin, ibis, tit, pipit, swift), whistling shrill chirps, trilling chirr chirr in high pitch. Kingbirds flit in gliding flight, skimming limpid springs, dipping wingtips in rills which brim with living things: krill, shrimp, brill - fish with gilt fins, which swim in flitting zigs. Might Virgil find bliss implicit in this primitivism? Might I mimic him in print if I find his writings inspiring?

Play. Word play. Deeply fun word play, cresting the poetic heights of monovowelism.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

The Romance of Sound and Senses, revisted

A couple years ago, I wrote about Ken Feit's remarkable sound poem, The Romance of Sound and Senses. Ken was the "holy fool" who taught me about the Frog of Enlightenupment. His sound poem is another example of his amazing wit, profound sensitivity, and endless creativity.

When I was in Fairfield I met a storyteller, and in telling her about Ken's sound poem, I realized how important it was to me that she knew about it, and that you knew about it. So I decided that maybe I needed to write yet another post about this amazing work, and to publish it again, in perhaps a more accessible format.

Which I did, here, as well as here.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith