Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Whelmed
    Whelmed
    Whelmed
    Ebook71 pages55 minutes

    Whelmed

    By Nicole Markotic

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    What might a word lose – or gain – without its prefix?

    Each prose poem in Whelmed features a word that has been unhinged from its prefix, allowing new meanings – radically unfamiliar, yet uncannily intimate – to emerge from these prefixless word deposits. Part prose-poem sequence and part encyclopedia of unpredictably irregular terms, Whelmed is at times deranging, almost disturbing, sometimes detached, and always joyfully rupting.

    'Addictionary of words lopped off from their prefixial syllables, this lightful pendium mises hours of giggles and a joyful sire to copy ad finitum! So much pleasure! So much verbal legerdemain. So spiring! Can’t stop/won’t stop reading, jotting, sharing. Constraint at its most unconstrained.'
    - Maria Damon

    ‘With Whelmed, the Woman in the Shoe (who has too much to do) and the stoned, fixed priestesses of Apollo invoke the order of an alphabet of prefixes. Enjoy the maze – take with you two string balls, one of truth and one of belief. Her mastery of language makes poetry free.’
    – Maxine Gadd

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCoach House Books
    Release dateApr 15, 2016
    ISBN9781770564480
    Whelmed
    Author

    Nicole Markotic

    Nicole Markotic is a poet, novelist, and critic. Her poetry books include Bent at the Spine (BookThug), Minotaurs & Other Alphabets, and Connect the Dots (Wolsak & Wynn); her novels are Yellow Pages (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) and Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot (Arsenal Pulp Press).

    Read more from Nicole Markotic

    Related to Whelmed

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Competition

      Jul 27, 2022

      IN COMPETITION NO 282 you were invited to write a poem with the title Unpacking. Basil Ransome-Davies, in a poem on the wars between sonic (pretty-sounding) and confessional poets, made me laugh with the couplet ‘Confessionals unpack their hearts, /

      2 min read

    • Article

      AUSTRALOPITHECA1 & STARMAN2

      Sep 1, 2019

      The countdown to you begyns with me, deere Starman, when I wander, dumbly, deep into a space hospittable to Hunger. Now, all’s desert. No milk in syte. Just pitifull sand, what shushes as it slydes through your hande to rejoin itself. I’d join myself

      7 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Dec 16, 2020

      1) From which language does the word ‘scampi' come? 2) The sola plant, Aeschynomene aspera, is used to make what sort of headwear? 3) Pernio or perniosis, a medical condition caused by exposure to cold, is more commonly known as what? 4) What are

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      Jester-necked pile of ideasfattening by the cutting board.I have known the summer wall,it says slowly. The hillside facessouth into the valley.Dew on the tomato plants.Anything that grows, swarms,bunches itself against a stayand cannot stay. The vine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Oct 14, 2021

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk blobnoxious adj. Stroppy due to women’s things. ‘In his autobiography, Burton claimed that his sixth divorce from Taylor was due to her blobnoxious behaviour on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.’ Bob’s brush euph. A t

      6 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      I learned the world through the bottoms of my feet, barein the creeks of summer, stepping on pebbles, the squidgeof moss between my toes. On hot asphalt, the hop and skipover cracks, feet already toughened by bramble, dirt, the pricklyground of pine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Mar 10, 2022

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk abolishing the licence fee n. A desperate diversionary tactic during a humiliating crisis, eg. Handing out Quality Streets to everyone in the room after an audible shart. anti-waxxers n. Name given to those ladies who prefer t

      7 min read

    • Article

      People Are Strange

      Oct 13, 2019

      People Are Strange
      5 min read

    • Article

      Spell

      Apr 25, 2018

      Spell
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2019

      Why is it drowning? Why unpinnedfloaty locks, inset with fallenleaf&filth as if any buoyant trash were jewel? Why painted pale—not pale and bloated? Why more adoredminnow-lipped than when she breathed air, spoke? Why love wesuch dank ophelia? Why rat

      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      Roger’S PROFANISAURUS

      Aug 4, 2022

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk air fryer 1. n. Device for making chips that won’t fur up your arteries. 2. n. A highcalorie food’s ghost exorcised from the premises of one who enjoys an unusually high-fat diet. Alan Sugar’s beard n. A straggly, threadbare f

      6 min read

    • Article

      Antelope Dreams

      Feb 2, 2024

      Antelope Dreams
      4 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      May 19, 2022

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk Andre Rieu’s encore 1. n. In the world of the performing arts, after you’ve just sat through an enormous pile of shite and you think it’s all finished, the dispiriting realisation there is still a bit more shite to go before y

      7 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Aug 5, 2021

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk aroma diffuser 1. n. A scientific device that breaks “essential oils” down into smaller molecules, dispersing them into the air for a pleasant or calming effect on the gullible. 2. n. The arsehole. Barbie’s minge sim. Somethin

      8 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2023

      1. Wine-makers say it’s the complex flavorcreated by the singular terrain of place: the kinds of minerals in the soilfiltered through the soft pulse and coil of earthworms; the curl of fog that snakesaround blushed grapes like wisps of smoke; the tas

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2019

      Not humble, a quilt takes credit for inventing cinema. Jump cuts? Sure—look: two shepherdesses evading rockets. And here’s rosefilled toile-land again. Other quilts at the bottom of the fulllinen chest running away from bad shepherds in toile-l and f

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      May 1, 2020

      We came here to fondle the glassoctopi. Rosy crystal dragons, psychedelic phalluses in jewelry cases. Eyeglasses, butterflies.Black market rocker leather; Do ItIn Muscle Beach tees. The indecisive sea.We ate a slice of boardwalkpizza topped with anch

      1 min read

    • Article

      Awalk In The Veld

      Aug 27, 2021

      Awalk In The Veld
      5 min read

    • Article

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS

      Feb 4, 2021

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk AA-lister n. An alcoholic celebrity. attention all shipping exclam. An urgent gale warning issued prior to a passage of potentially harmful wind. See also and now for something completely different; and Bully’s special prize…;

      7 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      May 18, 2023

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Whelmed

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Whelmed - Nicole Markotic

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1