30 Poems in 30 Days 2009: Day Twenty-Seven
September 27, 2009 by John Hewitt
Playing with language is one of the more entertaining and challenging aspects of writing poetry. There are so many ways to play with words: rhyme, alliteration, assonance, puns, meter, obscure words, nonsense words, and so on. Today I thought I would introduce one trick that you may already practice without knowing the name for it.
Adnomination is a poetic device in which you take a morpheme (a root meaning that is shared by many words) and use it in multiple(often opposing) ways. A good example of a morpheme that can be used in this way is the word time. Time exists as its own word, but it is also a part of many other words. Just a few of these are:
- Timetable
- Lunchtime
- Nighttime
- Timely
- Ragtime
- Timer
- Pastime
- Meantime
- Maritime
- Peacetime
Other morphemes don’t form words on their own, but can be found in many words. An example of this is radi. Radi is a morpheme that comes from Latin. Its base meaning is ray. Some words that include the letters radi are:
- Radiant
- Radial
- Irradiate
- Radiation
- Radiator
- Sporadic
- Radio
- Radish
- Radical
- Paradise
- Extradite
- Degrading
Clearly, not all of these words are actually using radi as a morpheme , but that is the fun of poetic license. Because the letters appear, you can play a true morpheme off of a false morpheme. Think of it as the adnomination version of an off-rhyme. Adnomination actually combines elements of rhymes and puns. It plays the meaning of one word off of the meaning of another that shares some of the same letters such as a sporadic radical or an irradiated radio. It is just one more way to have fun with language when you write poetry.
Today’s Poetry Prompt
Use one of the lists of words above or pick your own morpheme and use it to add adnomination to your poetry.
For My Former Employer
It seemed so informal
The phone call late in the day
That pleasant voice with a sprig of empathy
Telling me I was on my own now
There’s a formula that says
Inform the fired on a Friday
There’s likely to be less trouble then
Ask any questions you have first
Then perform the amputation quickly
Just before you head home
Or to happy hour
For more than a few drinks
Related links
- 30 Poems in 30 Days (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Issues (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place (1.000)
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Adnomination list: conclude, closet, occlude, exclusion, claustrophobia
In closet darkness
Trembling takes over
To the exclusion of
All else
Claustrophobia
Seems the only
Way to conclude
The evening
That began with such
Promise of
Being occluded
With you.
My favorite time-honored pastime
Takes me far from the timetables and deadlines
Set by others trying to control my time
I sit in the park at lunchtime
And suspend the hours
Nipping, yapping, biting at my heels
Clouds tumble into endless shapes
Dragons, ducks, dogs abound
In my daytime reverie
I inhale the peacetime
Knowing that all too soon
My time will no longer be my own
.-= Jenny Miller´s last blog ..Add Your Poetry =-.
Two: light and mag.
New Light
Moonlight and your shining face.
Your light voice murmuring
magical words, that danced
lightly through my imagination,
their meaning magnified.
And your eyes danced, alight.
The image of love, I thought,
but after all more probably delight
in what you might term mischief,
taking it lightly, but I, now
seeing the light, call damage.
Imagine! I thought you majestic,
your head thrown back, your hair
catching the light as you turned
slightly towards the lightening sky
as daylight dawned, soft magenta.
It was a magnificent ride, a flight
to unimaginable heights, away
from the light of reality (that
magisterial blight) but now
the magnetic pull of gravity
returns me to earth; I alight.