Antimetabolic antics

by CD Richards

You think I'm nervous? That I quake in fear?
Well that's the strangest thing I've heard all year!
I'm not the type to leave my panic showing,
for when the going's tough, the tough get going.

I didn't leave this little task to chance.
These words did not appear by happenstance.
No lack of practice will cause me to wail;
when failing to prepare, prepare to fail!

By now you might be asking "What is this?
Has something in his head gone all amiss?"
And yet, there's little wrong inside my bean;
I mean that which I say, my friend, I mean.

I'm hooked on all this antimetabole.
The whole is not the part, nor part the whole.
So join me in this poem's curtain call—
let's make it all for one and one for all!

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Today's word:

antimetabole (n.) the repetition, in a transposed order, of words or phrases in successive clauses.

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

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A chapter in the book A Potpourri of Poetic Curiosities

Antimetabolic antics

by CD Richards

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