The Poetry Stretch, hosted at Miss Rumphius Effect, is to write a poem about a childhood game. Here’s my attempt:
“pan,” “pen,” “pens,” “penst?”
“sun,” “side,” “sides” –
As sand runs through the hourglass,
my pencil, frantic, glides…
I dream of Boggle glory –
a word that doubles back
and uses all the letters
available to hacks
like me, who love to play this game
still hoping I will find
a word like “hippopotamus”
or something else sublime –
For now, I’m stuck with terseness:
cheap tricks like adding “e”
or “s” to mundane little words
like “pan” and “pane” and “see.”
How about you? What favorite games did you have?
Ruth, I think you should write a poem in reply: something about how you and your husband shattered my bravado as my family’s champion Boggle-player when we were in college.
Ha!
If I could just get you to join Facebook, then we could play Lexulous…
I don’t know what Lexulous is — but it sounds like another opportunity for massive humiliation!
Lexulous is similar to Scrabble, though Facebook does have a Scrabble game. It also has a game called Scramble that is similar to Boggle.
Love this poem! Very creative. That’s my experience, too — all too often the little words, finding things to as S or ER to. I think you probably do get more points, though, with a lot of little words than taking the time to find one big one. It is a thrill, though, to find one more than 5 letters long!
I like your Boggle trays, there, too.
Bravo, Janet! Poet! Poet! (Does that work the same way as Author! Author! ??)
I can’t play the real Scrabble on Facebook because you have to be in the US. Lexulous is very similar, though. I still lose more games than I win, but I am improving.