Antimetabole from Adverts to Hollywood to Broadway
Beyond the grand canyon of Gully Ali Beg
and its majestic waterfalls,
there is an old Kurdish woman somewhere
up, up Mount Nwathnin near the stars
embowered in a stone house
that she gardened out of rock.
All manner of men and women climb
the ruddy, pebbled path to her door
for she has a magical chicken,
one that clucks poetic ornaments.
A government official from the department of ticy was jealous
of the old woman's fortune to have such a chicken and asked
"How, when I am much smarter than you, old Crone
can you have raised a chicken so smart?"
"Cluck, cluck. It's smarter to be lucky than it's
lucky to be smart; you should know that, you smug cluck."
A young Peshmerga named Nahida, after crossing
the canyon and scaling the mountain did not
question the old woman, she simply rested in the garden
and wondered how best to continue to face death.
"Cluck, cluck," clucked the chicken clearing its throat,
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
One evening just before dusk a rich poultry farmer
from Qoshtapa, in his finest clothes asked the old woman
"I have hundreds of chickens. I've brought many thousands to market
and yet none has ever recited poetry. What is wrong with them?"
"Cluck!! Ask not what your chickens can do for you,
ask what you can do for your chickens! Cluck, cluck."
One early morning, a wizened, distraught poetry teacher
mumbled "How do I teach antimetabole to engineers?"
"Cluck, cluck, a + b = b + a," came a response
annotated with "have you forgotten your math?"
And once upon a time, a wizard from the magical land of Oz
asked how best to bestow a heart to a man made entirely of tin.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love;
but by how much you are loved by others," was the response.
Dedicated to Nora
Copyright (c) 2016-2017 by the authors
(Poetic Ornament #3: Antimetabole)
Antimetabole is a poetic device in which an idea or meme is repeated, but in reverse order. Writers use antimetabole to ornament or call to attention the idea or to change hearts and minds by demonstrating that current perceptions are not always what they seem.
"It's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart."
Stephen Schwartz, Pippin
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
unknown
"Ask not what your chickens can do for you, ask what you can do for your chickens!"
paraphrased from John Kennedy
"A heart is judged not by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
