Category Archives: Poetry

Two Dictionary Book Reviews

Just out this month, reviews by me of two smart and interesting books about dictionaries: Craig Dworkin’s Dictionary Poetics: Toward a Radical Lexicography (review in Dictionaries) and Stephen Turton’s Before the Word Was Queer: Sexuality and the English Dictionary 1600-1930 (review in Review of English Studies). These two very different books are both about dictionaries […]

12.12.2024 – 09:39 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Yarrowrhyme

I’ve completed the first major revision of my 2018 field guide to Paul Muldoon’s “soundprint” [see original post here]. Now with the title “Yarrowrhyme, or, Paul Muldoon’s Soundprint”, this update adds three new yarrowrhyming poems published since 2018: “Frolic and Detour” (Frolic and Detour), “The Triumph” (Howdie-Skelp) and “Near Izium” (Joy in Service on the […]

11.12.2024 – 13:05 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Digital Humanities, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Another Review of The Life of Words

In the July 2022 issue of Modern Language Review, a short review by Mia Gaudern. Gaudern is the author of the very good The Etymological Poetry of W. H. Auden, J. H. Prynne, and Paul Muldoon (OUP, 2020), published virtually at the same time by the same press, so she very much knows her stuff […]

20.07.2022 – 11:56 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Two reviews of The Life of Words

It has been almost two years since I published The Life of Words: Etymology and Modern Poetry, and even longer since I stopped working on it. A couple of reviews have come out, one just the other day. They’re by Barry Wallenstein (in Choice) and Stephanie Burt (in Modern Philology). The latter is free to read without […]

25.02.2022 – 09:34 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

Seamus Heaney on Dictionaries

In the summer of 2012 Seamus Heaney wrote to me on some questions I had sent him about dictionaries and words and etymologies. Bits of what he had to say made it into a couple of talks I did around that time, but I recently rediscovered the original text, and thought it should see the […]

18.08.2020 – 19:58 | By D-AW | Posted in Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments (3)

And we have Coverage!

Here’s the cover of my new book, out in April/May from OUP: [edit: now available at book stores and here]Image credit: “Iskandar and the Talking Tree”, from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (977-1010 CE), Bodleian MS. Ouseley Add.176, fol. 311v.  

17.02.2020 – 17:11 | By D-AW | Posted in Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The Life of Words Anthology 2018

Every year we run a poetry competition, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and the English Department of St Jerome’s University. We invite submissions from all Ontario high school students, on a topic to do with language or linguistics. This year we received over 200 poems from all over the province. We […]

31.05.2018 – 14:46 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Comments (0)

Paul Muldoon’s Soundprint

Paul Muldoon’s virtuosity with rhyme is often commented upon by critics (“virtuosity” is a frequent epithet where his rhymes are concerned, as are “bravura”, and “high-wire act”). One grand old man once wittily remarked that Muldoon could rhyme “cat” and “dog”, which is nice because while on the surface it suggests some kind of magical […]

09.04.2018 – 12:59 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Digital Humanities, Poetry | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Poetry Competition 2018

April is coming! And that means poetry is on the way… Now in its third year, The Life of Words hosts an annual poetry competition, open to all high school students in Ontario. Last year’s theme was “write a poem about language.” This year we’re narrowing things down a bit (but not too much), to […]

13.03.2018 – 15:46 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Tagged | Comments (0)

“Juvescence” and other poetical “Errors”

This morning on the Twitter came this from @nemoloris: OED says “juvescence” is “irregular”, not “erroneous”, but (notorious TSE fan) Robert Burchfield himself called it a malformation (in his Eliot memorial lectures, I believe). Eliot’s defensive letter, sourced by @rngould, is worth keeping in mind: irregular needn’t be erroneous, and sometimes poets are looking to […]

29.01.2018 – 11:23 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Etymology, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (8)