01 June, 2008

26 Tales from the Testaments

26 Tales from the Testaments; An Alliterated Bible Passage in Every Letter of the Alphabet
by
Cameron M. Semmons & Marc Rader



Lovely retellings of some Bible stories in verse ~ of a sort ~ with the primary catch that almost all the words in most of the poems are alliterative, so Semmons works his way through the alphabet. Sometimes the work is, as one might expect, a bit forced, though never painful and, i should think, still good in performance; many of the stories, however, are brilliantly retold, with new insights and ideas pushed forward because of the need to avoid or emphasise certain vocabulary. I particularly enjoyed the sound effects in the story of the wise and foolish builders (letter F words) and Pentecost (P) ~ especially interesting to me in that i have always linked flowing water with the sound of F, as in my poem “The Fountains of Rome”, and now perhaps i’m not alone. This will be a good source for our Church drama group to draw from; i’m sure that we can bring a newness to an occasional reading with one of these poems. Certainly a good thing that Andrew lent me the book.


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