Quadrilling a New Day

Yesterday was libraried,
catalogued and fairystoried,
night had diamonded
while we were still in bed.
Buttercupped beyond the shed,
new morning mangoed into being,
the dormoused sun almost refusing
to shine and cupcake in the sky –
and another new day began to dragonfly.

Kim M. Russell, 27th August 2020

Golden Buttercups Stock Pictures, Royalty-free Photos & Images - Getty Images

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Verbing

Björn is our host this Thursday, talking verbs, those parts of speech that he says turn the wheels and are so much more interesting than other word classes. He dismayed that our world is filling up with innate, passive nouns, which are gathering dust, and there are too few verbs to move them.

Björn reminds us that the word ‘verb’ is itself a noun, but even without poetic licence, we can turn a noun into a verb, and some nouns are already established as verbs.

Verbing is a great tool that can also be a tool for imagery and metaphors.  He has given us examples; one of my favourites is ‘butterflew’.  He says that he has found that more complex nouns work better as verbs, for example, eh doesn’t mind ‘to honeysuckle’, but ‘to tulip’ sounds weird.

Our challenge is to find a few creative nouns (or use some of the Björn’s examples) and weave a poem around them.

45 thoughts on “Quadrilling a New Day”

  4. Kim! You had me with the title. LOVE it all! And most especially these words
    “new morning mangoed into being” — this SO reminds me of many dawns in Provincetown! We will be there September 15 – 22 and I can hardly wait. For the first time in 22 years, we will rent a car (Hertz evidently deep cleans them and seals them up for X amount of time before another driver can drive them) and drive the length of the Cape to get there. You’ll recall, Ptown is at the very end of Cape Cod. To sit on the deck and watch the glorious ocean….to listen to the quiet sound of the ocean….to walk the desolate beach – there is barely anyone there that time of year. Having a car means we can bring our own groceries and wine … won’t need to shop there. So we will shelter-in-place there for 8 glorious days…no elevators to get to your place — just right on the ocean. Can’t wait to see those mornings mango into being!

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    1. Thank you, Lill! A break in one if your favourite places after months of uncertainty is indeed something to look forward to. I’m sure you’ll take plenty of photos and I look forward to seeing them.

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  5. This is fantastic, especially with using cupcake as a verb. Such an excellent piece here with inspiring, positive imagery. There is indeed always a new day to look forward to, while we reflect on the past, the yesterdays and years. Beautiful poem and brilliant verbing!

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  7. You had me at “the dormoused sun almost refusing to shine.” You are bang on with your Carroll analogy, along with Dr. Seuss and e.e. cummings. I’m smiling hard.

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  16. kaykuala

    the dormoused sun almost refusing
    to shine and cupcake in the sky –
    and another new day began to dragonfly.

    A Classic close Kim. ‘Began to dragonfly’ is cute!

    Hank

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  21. Two of my favorite podcasts–Lingthusiasm, and The History of English–both did adjectives this week, and in general how fluid parts of speech really are. This could have been an illustration for either of them!

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  22. Pingback: Quadrilling a New Day – ESSE

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