Growing up, there was a lot of kudos to be had in my family for getting answers in the Saturday crossword. Back then I never even dreamed that one day I would have a friend who builds them. Jon Coe also has a very fine sense for ellegant prose so, when he decided to Take It & Run, I couldn’t decide what to hope for.
What he took:
Where he ran:
Which means we got both and more. Here’s what he has to say:
Perhaps in anything vaguely creative, all one does is manipulate what already exists, but a literal (in more ways than one) way of doing it seemed to me to be to create an anagram. So I did. Every letter is used, just once. I think. No, I’m sure – I checked it quite a few times. The annoying thing is, seriously, who else is going to?
The evidence is perhaps in the slightly abstract penultimate line. The idea really was that the risk in doing something is ultimately no greater than in doing nothing. Which I try to believe, even if I don’t often do it. Usually I seem to ‘cease pace’s act’ (stop moving I mean) for fear of failure, but this time, maybe I ran.
Has anyone ever made an annagram recreation of a poem before? Did Jon just invent a new cross-over genre?
Either way – I’m hoping for a haunting folk version on his mandola.
that is cool!