Quote:
Originally Posted by Orwn Acra
Could someone talk to me about Word Ways? I looked on their website, but it's not very informative. What kind of poetry do they accept? It seems anything with word play, but I'd like to know more.
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Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics.....That accurately reflects its focus. Though there is quite a bit of "light verse" and semi-nonsense, the interest isn't on poetry as such, but on word play: a potpourri of anagrams, puzzles, palindromes, "ungrams" ("which are much like Anagrams, except less so"), obscure puns, word squares, "Spoonertoons" (e.g. sentences like "The Lock Hurter" captioning a cartoon of a bandit blowing up a safe), "Numerical Charades," etc., etc.
It is based in and produced at Butler University in Indianapolis. Pages are photocopied 8.5" x 11" sheets, from originals submitted by contributors. Style is therefore quite inconsistent.
I submitted my anagram sonnet to it specifically because I ran across Shulman's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in a New York Times review of Ross Eckler's
Making the Alphabet Dance, and Eckler is on the editorial board of
Word Ways. In a letter to NYT responding to that review, Shulman wrote: "after waiting 60 years, I find that nobody so far has equaled or surpassed [his anagram sonnet]. I even tried to, but I failed." So I was aiming for a very specific audience with a very particular interest.