Monday, 13 June 2005

Amazonian Phrases

Have you noticed that the SIPs (or Search-Inside Phrases) Amazon.com uses can often double as poems? Two word phrases, some unique to a particular book, which show up underneath the author name and description.

The Hounds of the Mórrigan, in which Pat O'Shea has created an incredibly poetic story in its own right, has the following SIPs:

little brown duck
glasshouse door
swapping sweets
old angler, hev bin
one with the hat
tall thin people
table landscape
metal man
new mare

You can see how this could easily be arranged to form a noun-based poem.

Under Owl Service by Alan Garner:

peat road
cold kippers
hen hut
pebble dash
marsh gas

This one is even close to rhyming. So I wondered if I could write a poem in SIPs. I came fairly close with List_serv:UNREADY (so called due to its bizarre resemblance to failed e-mails being sent out by a list_serv I was on, and which really needs a new name, but I digress...), but I included verbs and prepositional phrases, so I don't think it counts.

What say you?

Temporary Soundtrack: I Am the Sun from The Ben Taylor Band.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "And I'm making up my mind to shine // instead of letting the evening keep // I am the sun // That's all I've ever been since I've begun..." - see above.

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