[Gregory Dowling]

It's interesting to note just how many of Shakespeare's sonnets finish with monosyllabic lines. Here are a few others:

Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. (all right, one two-syllable word)

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

And they shall live, and he in them still green.

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.

And more, much more, than in my verse can sit
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

Save thou, my Rose; in it thou art my all.

Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.

All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me;
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

For I have sworn thee fear, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

But love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

Her "love" for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Vikram Seth has two very good poems written entirely in monosyllables in his book All You Who Sleep Tonight: "Walk" (4 quatrains of iambic tetrameter) and "Soon" (7 quatrains of iambic trimeter). "Soon" is particularly powerful, a poem in the voice of someone dying of AIDS, which begins:

I shall die soon, I know.
This thing is in my blood.
It will not let me go.
It saps my cells for food.

He obviously has a thing for monosyllables, as he has a section in his novel, An Equal Music, in monosyllables: it describes a visit to Torcello (page 286) and begins:

In God's great barn the souls are weighed. In the fiend's lap sits the false Christ, pert and mild. Great beams thrust off the wall and strut the roof. The queen of grace, dressed all in blue, holds up her wise-faced child.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Thank you, Graham. But Gregory's list demonstrates why my Shakespeare rewrite might not actually be all that awe inspiring. I tied myself in knots of frustration with some other poets, but Shakespeare lends himself nicely to this exercise. The sonnets get a bit tricky when you have to redo the rhymes, but some of his best blank verse practically rewrites itself:

To be or not to be, that’s what I ask.
Should I think it’s more right to feel the pain
As mad fate strikes me with its slings and darts,
Or take up arms and fight back at these woes?

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Chris O'Carroll

...Shakespeare lends himself nicely to this exercise. The sonnets get a bit tricky when you have to redo the rhymes, but some of his best blank verse practically rewrites itself:

To be or not to be, that’s what I ask.
Should I think it’s more right to feel the pain
As mad fate strikes me with its slings and darts,
Or take up arms and fight back at these woes?

I still think you were clever to keep a poetic flow and not seem clunky!

I noticed your version above can be recast to rhyme excessively throughout (for fun - I'm not calling this poetic!) :

To be or not to be, the quip I pose.
Should I think it's more right to feel those throes
From blows mad fate throws me with slings and bows,
Or take arms if I chose to fight those woes?

(I had 'quiz' then thought 'quip' more apt, in several senses I find given by Merriam-Webster - but chiefly 'A quibble; equivocation'.)

[Brian Allgar]

Well, I can't say it was much fun - definitely more a drill than an amusement.

And I can't imagine that it's much fun for others to read. Still, I'd had a few drinks when I did it, and ivresse oblige.

Of Man’s first “No I won’t!”, and of the Fruit
Of that “Keep off me” tree, the taste of which
Brought Death to plague the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one Man more great
Should mend us, and take back the Seat of bliss,
Sing, Muse of God, that on the well-hid top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst spur on
That Sheep-herd, who first taught the Seed of choice,
At the start of things, how the Sky and Earth
Rose out of naught. Or if Sion Hill
Shoud please thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Mouth that speaks for God, I thence
Call forth from thee thy aid for my bold Song,
That with no low or base flight means to soar
O’er the Aonian Mount, while it doth seek
Things no one yet has tried in Prose or Rhyme.

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

[Roger Slater]

Writing in monosyllables is harder in some languages than others. According to Wikepedia, "the phonetic rules of Thai language permits 23,638 possible syllables, compared to, for example, Hawaiian language's 162." I have not yet found how many monosyllabic words there are in English but I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in between.

I wonder how hard it would be to write poems or prose that avoid all monosyllabic words. I suppose the lack of articles and pronouns would slow things down considerably.

[Roger Slater]

To be or not to be? That's what I ask.
Is it more cool in one's head to roll with
The guns and bombs of fate's bad shit
Or to fight back and try to strike them down?
To die? To sleep? That's it. But if we sleep
Does that mean that we end the pain and stop
The hurt of life? If so, that's what we all
Should wish for all our days. To die! To sleep!
But might we then have dreams? Yup, there's the catch!
For in the nap of death, the dreams we have
Once we have let the crap of life go free
Could turn out to be worse crap than we knew.
And that's why life that's long is such a shame.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

Well, I can't say it was much fun - definitely more a drill than an amusement.
...
And I can't imagine that it's much fun for others to read... Still, I'd had a few drinks when I did it, and ivresse oblige.

Je regrette... et au contraire! I enjoyed your version, at least!

Good rhythm - while managing to remain still concise in monosyllables (I especially admire your terse clear replacements for 'disobedience' and 'forbidden').

[Graham King]

I've (perhaps rashly) attempted to render Jabberwocky in monosyllables. I made no exceptions but did allow myself hyphenations such as 'snake-like' and 'blood-soaked'.
If brevity is the soul of wit I have failed, as it has ended up more than five times as long as the original; too long to post here!

The first two words " 'Twas brillig" had to expand to " 'Twas time to start to broil for tea" - there being no single-syllable synonym for 'brillig' that I know. Conveying even the word 'sundial' I found a considerable challenge; it is only now that I realise I could have avoided mention of it altogether and just have stuck with 'wabe' for the lawn surrounding it. But I've gone pretty much with Humpty Dumpty's unpacking of Carroll's other portmanteau words. For 'the Jabberwock' itself I have coined 'the Wock that Jabs its Burr', which seems to me in keeping with its anatomy and character.

So far, 'toves' alone I have not rephrased. For how to render lizard or badger in one syllable? (I may now try).
Checking, I have just found the word 'tove' to exist (possibly) outside Carroll, as a Scottish intransitive verb meaning 'to smoke or to emit a smoky smell' (tove, toved, toving, toves). I can fancy a plausible visual/etymological link: from a curl of smoke spiralling upwards to the corkscrewing snouts, tails and movements of the toves - as described by Carroll and illustrated by Tenniel.

[Brian Allgar]

Graham, I didn't mean to be as dismissive as perhaps I sounded.

But fundamentally, it's an exercise that, while it stretches the brain to find ways of transforming the polysyllabic into the monosyllabic, can only diminish the original; and - for me, the killer - without creating anything worthwhile in its own right (as for instance a parody might do).

Still, I'm glad you liked the two replacements that you mention. I must admit, I thought them quite snappy myself.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

Graham, I didn't mean to be as dismissive as perhaps I sounded.

But fundamentally, it's an exercise that, while it stretches the brain to find ways of transforming the polysyllabic into the monosyllabic, can only diminish the original; and - for me, the killer - without creating anything worthwhile in its own right (as for instance a parody might do).

Still, I'm glad you liked the two replacements that you mention. I must admit, I thought them quite snappy myself.

No problem, Brian! - certainly no offence taken. I took your comment as being delivered with a wry grimace rather than a snarl! No-one need try unless they want to
I realise the likely output may tend to be more a novelty item than a thing of transcendent beauty; on the other hand, some of the versions produced by contributors here do seem notable expressions. To me all poetry is play, and words are like Lego or Meccano; the challenge (drill/amusement!) of putting into monosyllables akin to that of a crossword puzzle.

Chacun à son goût!