Acrostic Challenge
UOSH Volunteer and poet Amy Evans Bauer invites you to write your own creative response to the WordBank:
Calling all listers, logophiles, poets, crossworders and puzzleers!
The sheer variety of spoken English in the UK and beyond befits a celebration in kaleidoscopic form, so we’ve decided to host our first #acrostic challenge. Joining in won’t take long…
Simply brew, damp, draw, mash, scald, steep, stew or wet yourself a cuppa, browse the WordBank and compile a list, sentence or poem in acrostic form. Tweet us your entry to @VoicesofEnglish @amyevansbauer #acrosticchallenge or email us at [email protected] by 22nd November for the chance to feature in a selection chosen for a celebratory blog post this December.
You may feel inspired independently or want to write in a pair or group.
We can’t wait to see your creations! Read on for guidelines and an example.
Guidelines
- An acrostic form is one in which the first letters of each line spell out a word or phrase. For this challenge, you can choose to spell WORDBANK, VOICEBANK or UOSH. (See below).
- Your additional curatorial task is to include at the start of your line/s a word or phrase archived in the WordBank. (Minimum: please ensure at least one line opens with a word from the collection.)
Additional options
- Beginner/tea-break option: see how you go with a shorter list that spells WORD, BANK or VOICE.
- Advanced option: try your hand at an acrostic sonnet by spelling WORDBANK UOSH.
Submission
Tweet your composition to @VoicesofEnglish @amyevansbauer #acrosticchallenge by 22/11/18.
If your creation is longer than a Tweetable 35 characters, or you would rather send your submission as a short email or Word document attachment, then please send to [email protected] with the subject heading #ACROSTIC.
Maximum 3 entries per person. Hyperlinks are not required. If you would like your acrostic to remain anonymous, please indicate this in your email.
Example
To set pens in motion, here is my own here is my own WORDBANK acrostic. Presumptuously, I create enough slippage for the speaker’s voice to be either that of a caulkhead [= ‘someone born on the Isle of Wight’] or someone who, like me, grew up on the island belonging to the opposite part of my favourite pair of nouns:
Wumpert
ROFL
Deffo too
Brassic for
Argy-bargy and
Nithered
Kerfuffle
You may want to collate some of your own word memories from the collection, or to build with alien terms as your acrostic bricks.
In my version, each line begins with an item in the WordBank, including one contribution available online (Overner), and I have selected the rest from the hundreds more recordings that are accessible in the Library’s London and Boston Spa Reading Rooms via the Sound and Moving Image catalogue. Why not register as a British Library Reader and plan a visit? Feel free to include a similar combination of archived and/or online parts of the collection
Challenge!
We do not demand any poetic or puzzled complexity. Rather, we are looking for an acrostic form that achieves one of the following: conveys the variety of the collection, plays with sound, celebrates place, explores a linguistic point of interest, or delves into accent, dialect and slang in any other way that may appeal. Rest assured, the form ensures that yours will!
Spoken English Cataloguer Holly Gilbert @Collecting Sound has courageously accepted the mission to Tweet first with an attempt at VOICEBANK and Lead Curator Jonnie Robinson will throw his hat in the ring with UOSH. How about you? We hope you will join in.
Please share with friends and colleagues. All ages and dialects welcome!
Amy’s poetry installation SOUND((ING))S is available to hear online or to read in chapbook form as the transcript PASS PORT.