Words, words, words...

Could you imagine a world without the written word?

Words on paper can let our brains do amazing things. Well, reading the words can do.

It can transport us to other world. Let us live vicariously through the lives of real or fictional characters.

Reading words can create emotions; make us feel sad or happy, excited or fearful. Bring a tear to our eye or set the heart racing.

How powerful is that!

And not just reading the words, listening to a story or a song can put us under a spell. Bringing back old memories or helping to create new ones.  

Poetry can be particularly evocative, sort of a cross between music and reading. And not just for us grown up either.

I remember first hearing the remarkable rhyming fun of the Cat in The Hat when I was at primary school. The book was first published in about 1957 and has been enchanting children and grownups alike since then.

“We looked!
Then we saw him
step in on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!”

“I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good fun
that is funny!”

It doesn’t even have to make sense. What do I mean? Well how about this written by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

Nonsense is fun, just look at the beginning of the epic poem The Walrus and the Carpenter.

 The sun was shining on the sea,

Shining with all his might;

He did his very best to make

The billows smooth and bright--

And this was odd, because it was

The middle of the night. 

 And I can’t mention the word nonsense without quoting the most famous of them all, the very talented Edward Leer.

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, "It is just as I feared!

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!"