Whether he's writing 69 songs about love or making an album of songs beginning with the letter "i," Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields loves quirky concept projects. Here's his latest: a book of poetry devoted to Scrabble's two-letter words.
The book is called 101 Two-Letter Words, and it showcases all of the beloved board game's permissible two-letter words. The New York Times [via Pitchfork] reports that it will be out in October through W. W. Norton.
All of the poems are four lines long, and they come with colour illustrations by Roz Chast.
"My mother is a former English teacher who always expected me to write the Great American Novel, thunderous and profound, so she was not impressed to learn that my first book is going to be amusing light verse," Merritt said in a statement. "But now that I've got her hooked on Words With Friends, she sees the immense value of remembering the two-letter words, and what fascinating little oddities they are, so she's begging for a copy of the book."
Here's a sample poem:
The country folk say "howdy-do"
but here in town, it's "yo";
they'll say it in the country too
in twenty years or so.
The book is called 101 Two-Letter Words, and it showcases all of the beloved board game's permissible two-letter words. The New York Times [via Pitchfork] reports that it will be out in October through W. W. Norton.
All of the poems are four lines long, and they come with colour illustrations by Roz Chast.
"My mother is a former English teacher who always expected me to write the Great American Novel, thunderous and profound, so she was not impressed to learn that my first book is going to be amusing light verse," Merritt said in a statement. "But now that I've got her hooked on Words With Friends, she sees the immense value of remembering the two-letter words, and what fascinating little oddities they are, so she's begging for a copy of the book."
Here's a sample poem:
The country folk say "howdy-do"
but here in town, it's "yo";
they'll say it in the country too
in twenty years or so.