Poetry Challenge #208-Amp It Up!
The instant I learned there was such a thing as National Ampersand Day, Joni Mitchell’s song “Twisted” popped into my head:
& he thought I was nuts/No more ifs or & or buts, oh no!/They say as a child I appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas/but I knew what was a jean-yuus . . .
But then I thought, why not? After all doesn’t it seem right & fitting to set aside time to celebrate a symbol that dates back more than 2,000 years; & was once the last letter of the English alphabet (before Z took its place);& stands for the latin word et, “and” in English as in the word etcetera; &is derived from an alteration of “and per se and,” meaning (i.e. ‘&’); & is arguably the most used lologram* in the English language? & so, without further ado:
Poetry Challenge #208
AMP IT UP
Let’s use these “how to celebrate ampersand day” suggestions to revise a poem.
#1 Select a poem to revise
Now: AMPersand IT UP…rather in the spirit of the day…& IT UP!
#2 Substitute an ampersand “& “ for every “and” in the poem.
#3 Throughout the poem, replace the “and” sound with an ampersand. For example: change Andrea to &rea; Alexander to Alex&er, Grandma to Gr&ma; etc. & so forth.
#4 If your poem doesn’t have enough ampersands to make it interesting—or &y at all—change & add words until it looks more interesting.
#5 If you dare, send your revised poem to a friend for decoding.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it! & Have Fun!
*A logogram is a character that represents a word or phrase commonly used in shorthand. Other lolograms include @, #, $, %… & numbers such as 4 . . . LOL (yep LOL is a lologram too, lol!)
& BTW: Amersand Day was declared “in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone, an author, designer, typographer & founder of AmperArt an initiative which considers the ampersand to be an art form.”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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