Composed and illustrated originally in 2019, Uly Poe's nonsense verse "What A's Not For," at that time addressed to a young lad and his sister, indicated to those anonymous siblings one at a time in alphabetical order not only a series of 26 items which A and the other 25 alphabet letters did not initialize but also a second series, every letter of which in each of the 26 multi-word items in that series began with the same key letter. This new revision of that illuminated (and illuminating?) ABC, widening the scope of its addressees, now speaks to a series of individuals drawn from history and legend whose names begin with their verse's key letter and each of whom has proven instrumental in the creation of one or another invention contributing to the evolution of alphabets. Thus a reading of the poem and its footnotes offers both education as well as amusement. The original color images picturing what each letter did stand for are, in this new edition, accompanied by b/w spot illustrations portraying what the poem's original title suggests -- that is, what each alphabet letter is not for...and, indeed, four of each of those items. And, of course, the complete poem features as much additional wordplay as poetaster Poe can shamelessly manage to insert.
What A's Still Not For
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Armadillo chips...?
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No, Agrippa,* A's not for four
armadillo chips...although al-
low'd (as afterthought)...? An Appa-
loosan acrobat.
*Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von
Nettesheim, famed Renaissance polymath,
creates the Celestial Alphabet c. 1525.
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Bien cuit bacon strips...?
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B...? No, Byrom,* B's not for four
bien cuit bacon strips. Big Brother's
brief...? Be babysitting's badass
bowler'd bureaucrat.
*British poet John Byrom invents
a system of shorthand c. 1715.
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Cornucopias...?
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C...? No, Cyril,* C's not for four
cornucopias...'cuz (candid-
ly) crisp coatings choke cute chocolate-
cover'd crocodiles.
*With his brother, Methodius, St. Cyril is
credited with devising the Glagolithic alphabet
used to transcribe Old Church Slavic in 863.
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"Donciad"s Drumpft does...?
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D...? Oh, no, Dee,* D's not for four
"Donciad"s Drumpft does: duets D
does distinguish...? Dartmouth's dapper
dancing discophiles.
*John Dee, court astronomer to Elizabeth I,
invents an Enochian alphabet c. 1582.
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Easter Islanders...?
|
No, Emmerkar,* E's not for four
Easter Islanders. Each earnest
epileptic elf exhibits
elasticities.
*To this legendary Sumerian king (name
accented on the second syllable) is ascribed
the invention of cuneiform c. 2300 BC.
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Four-foot faux fox furs...?
|
F...? No, Franklin,* F's not for four
four-foot faux fox furs. Fork'd fins fore-
tell ferocious (fatal...?) feeding-
frenzy fantasies.
*Benjamin proposes a phonetic alphabet based
on Latin ABCs while containing additional letters
created by him c. 768.
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Gilded garden gnomes...?
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No, Gomango,* G's not for four
gilded garden gnomes. Gay gyro
geeks grab gravity's gynormous
Gs: Go, galivanters!
* Indian language activist Mangel Gomango
invents Sorang Sompeng script in 1936.
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Hard hats hiding Holmes...?
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H, Herr Hill*...? No, no, not for four
hard hats hiding Holmes. Hot hands held
high, Huns holler, heartily, "Heil,
Hitler's hierophanters!"
*British stenographer James Hill develops
Teeline Shorthand, originally for use by journalists,
c. 1968.
I...? No, Ibrahim.* Not for four
Irish Idahoes, if I in-
stead, indeed, imports illumi-
nated isobars.
* Ibrahim Njoya, King of Cameroon, invents
Bamum script c. 1910.
(More to come, including all the original
full-color and many new b/w images; a work
in progress)
