Table of Forms—Abecedarian

I use the term "abecedarian" to refer to a poem constrained by alphabetic order.

Zero Yokum, xylophonist, was virtually uneducated
thought Schoenberg ridiculous
quoted Pleasance on "new music"
loved Katelby
jeered Ives
hated Ginastera
found even Debussey's chords blatantly avant-garde

—Truman Hayes

A bizarre example is Walter Abish's novel Alphabetic Africa. If the entire alphabet is used, an abecedarian poem is a pangram.

Vanilla Vagina Utopia: a transgram and pangrammatic abecederian telestich, in which the words are in alphabetic order and are all nouns ending with A.

New Order Poem: a poem with 26 lines of three words each, in which every letter of the alphabet appears at the beginning, at the end, and somewhere in the middle of a word

Uni High: A poem that recites the alphabet.

Oh! John don't go to Kosovo (Newspoem 17 March 1999): a progressively (abecedarian) univocalic poem, in which each line is univocalic on the vowel that follows in the alphabet the vowel used in the previous line. This poem is also a six vowel serial poem using heavy stuttering. Furthermore it is also a number poem, comprising two stanzas each comprising six six-word lines.

Analyzing Haze: a short story whose paragraphs are in alphabetic order. For a detailed explanation of Analyzing Haze, buy Table of Forms.

  Table of Forms
Table of Forms Forms
Order the Book Contents
Bibliography Spineless Books
Dominique Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn
© 1996-2007 Spineless Books