IVP - Strangely Dim - Ode to an Artfully Written Run-On Sentence

November 30, 2007

Ode to an Artfully Written Run-On Sentence

Today's entry in our Fortnight of Odes is inspired by Cory Doctorow, specifically his article "How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook." The whole article is great, but I'm particularly impressed with the following run-on sentence: "Maybe it's evolutionary, some quirk of the neocortex dating from our evolution into social animals who gained advantage by dividing up the work of survival but acquired the tricky job of watching all the other monkeys so as to be sure that everyone was pulling their weight and not napping in the treetops instead of watching for predators, emerging only to eat the fruit the rest of us have foraged." For another angle on the challenge of being chief monkey, check out my boss's recent blog post "Getting on the Bus."

And now for the ode.

Ahem.

He keeps going and going and going.
In the beginning, he wrote as if midsentence--
Articulating an afterthought,
Commencing adverbially.
One searches in vain for the verb that justifies
The capital at the beginning
And the period at the end.
And yet . . .
And yet I keep reading and reading and reading,
As though I've stumbled upon the treasure map of the Internet
Or of creation
Or of evolution,
As though my own genesis and apocalypse
Can be found and celebrated in this one sentence
With no beginning and no end.

Posted by Dave Zimmerman at November 30, 2007 8:43 AM

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Behind the Strangeness

Lisa Rieck is a reader and writer who likes to discuss good ideas over hot drinks and gets inspired by the sky. She takes in all kinds of good ideas as a proofreader for InterVarsity Press.

David A. Zimmerman is an impish editor for Likewise Books. Read about his extracurricular exploits at Loud Time.

Likewise Books from InterVarsity Press explore a thoughtful, active faith lived out in real time in the midst of an emerging culture.