Poets and writers are always playing around with words and their meanings—but some take that linguistic jiggery-pokery to the next level. The five poems listed here are each an extraordinary example of wordplay, from those that can be read in more than one direction to those that can be reimagined as works of visual art. 1. “I Often Wondered When I Cursed” // (Maybe) Lewis Carroll If you find some of those lines a little clumsy or tough to read, there’s a very good reason: Astonishingly, every single line in Shulman’s poem is an anagram of the title. 3. “A Lowlands Holiday Ends in Enjoyable Inactivity” // Miles Kington Inside Time reserve the right to republish comments in its newspaper or in any of its other publications, however, in these cases, comments will be anonymised. Its six lines each contain six words that together form a word square that can be read both horizontally and vertically: reading downwards, the first word of each line reads the same as the first line itself, the second word of each line reproduces the second line of the poem, and so on. The British humourist and journalist Miles Kington wrote the bizarre two-line poem "A Scottish Lowlands Holiday Ends in Enjoyable Inactivity" in 1988— and then promptly forgot all about it. Then, for a column on wordplay written for the Independent in 2003, he apparently rediscovered it and brought it to an entirely new audience’s attention:

Kenneth Steven was inspired during a sermon, but had no pen or paper and therefore had to memorise his lines until he could scuttle off home, and Glyn Maxwell also composed in his head "as I wandered the hills around Lumb Bank in pouring rain, in desperate flight from Arvon students". Inspired by the 19th century Japanese artist Hokusai’s series of prints Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, you can read Keith’s entire "Nine Views" (and more on the incredible constraints behind it) here, but for now here’s a taste:Helas is an exclamation of woe or disappointment dating from the 15th century, apparently; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it's related to the world alas.) "A Scottish Lowlands Holiday" is an example of a holorime, an extraordinary feat of wordplay in which not only the last syllable of a pair of lines of verse rhyme with one another, but the entire lines themselves. Put another away, both lines are pronounced pretty much identically (for example, "In Ayrshire" is pronounced roughly like "inertia"). 4. “A Dozen A Gross and A Score” // Leigh Mercer Now imagine suspending those matrices from a ceiling and shining lights at them from the sides and from above: The shadows cast on the floor and walls behind would form the Japanese Kanji characters representing fire, mountain, wealth, and samurai, which put together spell “volcano” and “Fuji.” Mind blown. urn:lcp:spotonmybumhorri0000wals:epub:c93ed3e8-43cc-47f9-b007-95316b0908ca Foldoutcount 0 Identifier spotonmybumhorri0000wals Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s271nft0kgg Invoice 1652 Isbn 1872438105 Ocr tesseract 5.1.0-1-ge935 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.16 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000669 Openlibrary_edition includes the alleged offences of named individuals unless it is considered to be already common public knowledge

Although this poem is typically credited to Lewis Carroll, it didn’t appear in print until several decades after Carroll’s death. Nevertheless, "I Often Wondered When I Cursed"—which is also known as simply "A Square Poem"—has all the hallmarks of Carroll’s love of wordplay.The American lexicographer David Shulman wrote the sonnet "Washington Crossing the Delaware"—inspired by the famous painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze—in 1936, when he was just 23. As a sonnet, the poem contains 14 lines, divided into four four-line stanzas and a final rhyming couplet, which follow a strict rhyme scheme AABBCCDDEEFFGG: Alongside Gez's Potty Poets titles, the first book in the author's new educational series, Fax 4 U, was released, entitled Drugs - Booze, Glue, Cigs and Coffee, too!, part of a set of books aimed at broaching issues facing 21st century young people. The end of the year also heralded the entry of Don't Wee in the Bath, Terry!: Potty Poems with a Capital "P", the author's eleventh book.

Walsh has also developed a stand-up act for adult audiences. He also regularly presents the Wednesday afternoon show on Phoenix FM Radio in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. In the summer of 2014 he was appointed as the official "poet laureate" of Calderdale. Also, at the same time, he was the poet in residence at the Orange Box, a community arts centre in Halifax, West Yorkshire.Towards the end of 2001, Fido's Foul Surprise And Other 'Ruff' Rhymes hit the bookshops, closely followed by the second volume of the comedy-horror Celtic Chronicles, Banshee Moon. proved a busy time for Gez. Writing and performing full-time took his unique brand of humour to schools, libraries and festivals around the country with his reputation as a motivator of reluctant readers growing alongside his popularity. Bringing Gez's published work to the dozen mark was the author's most recent poetry collection, Mum, the Dog's Drunk Again! Horribly Potty Poems for Horribly Horrid Kids. This brought Gez to the attention of the nation once more as BBC's Look North televised his comic poetry performance during a World Book Day celebration in a Yorkshire school, while Radio Five Live also featured Gez's antics.