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got it all away again

Posted By Pearl Pirie On March 4, 2008 @ 3:16 pm In Poetry & (non-)Fiction | 2 Comments

we drug the bushel tin out of the cellarwhen we done up the beets last week there.what a job. i warshed the counter all.what a mess. the ones we grewpickled up fine. only a few come up.too dry, or something got at them.we had to get more. the boughten beetsthey were hard as anything. bad yearfor sugar beets. see my nailsstill stained all. your aunt, the same.

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2 Comments To "got it all away again"

#1 Comment By Josh Massey On March 10, 2008 @ 8:35 pm

The way words are glued together here verge on instances of “telescoping” yet they don’t blend together, which is interesting - the eye registers funny blips from attempting to assimilate two words as one, which are processed by the mind as off-meanings. “grewpickled” has a kind of third meaning for me greater than the parts. We sure grewpickled them good, those whatchamacallits! “warshed” seems like a regional pronunciation of “washed”, and sounds familiar - Urban Dictionary says it originates from Ohio but I’m sure I’ve heard it said in Kemptville as well. Of course I can’t help but notice the “war” in it, which, when considered alongside those fundamental beets, evokes a scenario of wartime scarcity, or war resulting from famine. This prose poem serves the very practical purpose of reminding me that my vital beet sugar supply is running low, and my watermelon sugar needs topping up as well! Dank you for the reminder!