I teach a series of multi-week courses on Outschool called Vocabulary Building with Latin and Greek Roots and Affixes. This winter, the students and I have been having fun creating poems featuring English words derived from specific Greek and Latin roots. In this piece involving words derived from caput, capitis (Latin = ‘head’), I once again used a Seussical style of rhyming couplets, probably because I was trying to entertain young students. It’s challenging to construct something coherent using a list of etymologically related words! Enjoy.
Advice to Authors (Off the Top of My Head)
‘Tis a capital idea to begin at the head
of an argument, or of a song.
Though sometimes I think that it’s truly okay
to begin at the end; that’s not wrong.
Not every story is told in chronology;
readers can sequence events.
But most tend to prefer an incipient plot
that progresses and hooks audience.
As readers, it’s fun to be led to a precipice;
wond’ring keeps us on edge.
Cliffhangers add greatly to dramatic tension;
like cattle we run to the ledge,
which leads us to wish for additional chapters,
bemoaning that we must instead
wait patiently for the release of a sequel
while holding the plot in our heads.
Such devoted readers are not as abundant
as authors and publishers wish.
So they tease with announcements of upcoming titles
and reel us to purchase like fish,
who, once on the line, do pre-order each issue,
we capitulate oft to the hype.
There are many for whom book-buying’s a must.
(Nearly all my close friends fit this type.)
The amount that we bibliophiles spend at the bookstore
spikes greatly the national stats.
(Some people like me buy one book every day,
counting digital and print formats!)
This spending’s an outlier that skews reader data;
book reading per capita’s low,
Almost half my compatriots read ten books or fewer each year;
twelve percent read zero.
Though, purchase of books provides no guarantee
that the reader has actually read.
(I have several stacks that are taller than me
piled haphazardly next to my bed.)
Precipitate spending can pile up as well,
putting strain on one’s budget and spouse.
If you captioned a photo of my residence,
it’d say, “Her books need their own own house!”
But back to the point that I made at the start –
I recapitulate here to be clear.
As a reader, it’s fun when a writer does fashion
narrative that is nonlinear.
We like when a book comes to dramatic peak,
and when the denouement tapers slow.
And remember, wise writers, to cap with cliff-hangers,
so sequel pre-orders will grow!
– Karen M. Wieland
Copyright © 2022 by Karen M. Wieland, Ph.D
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.