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In the late 1970s and early 1980s
my mountaineering friends and I went through a period of obsession with
spoonerisms (from which we have perhaps not yet wholly recovered). One
product of this affliction was the following sonnet, which I wrote about
waking up in a tent in the mountains.I think it is unique in the world's
panoply of sonnets in that there is a spoonerism in every line (and two
in the first line), including the title. Line eleven contains what I refer
to as an impacted spoonerism (working orally), which is one in which the
first part of one word is embedded into the middle of another (the classic
example being "extensive paste"). OK, parts are a bit contrived,
and parts work far better orally than in writing, but it will have to
do. (I also had to adopt an alias for this one.)
A SAD LITTLE BONNET
Ere Ron's first daze did match my tent at corn,
Aroused was I from dozy cream-filled sleep;
- So ceased the bells that shingled on the jeep
That I'd been counting - shaggy sheep unborn.
No batter by some wild nerd forlorn,
Nor by a priest out bowling from his keep;
Indeed did naught but prawn defer to creep.
Unwilling to this day was I Ben Thorn.
The downy molds fake comfort hard to quit.
I slaved some creep, and that I would not miss.
Alone in this a toad I burned a bit,
Nor would I sound to greet the bun's first kiss.
Alas, I would not Kate, I did submit;
Out in the snow I popped to have a hiss.
By
Ben Thorn
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