The Hoptoad & the Ampersand
A hoptoad sat on his toadstool
In his tent on the ampersand
And he did hark
To an aardvark’s bark
And the sound of a saraband (1)True toads then and nematodes
Danced on the ampersand… (2)…
The aardvark was pal to the palindrome
And he was pal to the Saint
He paid up his sin tax
And never said shit
And he certainly never said ain’t (9)
As poetry, this piece is odd, perhaps unique. Its five-line stanzas have the rhythm of limericks, but an unusual scheme of consistently rhyming only the second and fifth lines. Except in stanzas 1, 4, 11, and 12, where the third and fourth lines also rhyme.
The illustration includes a giant ampersand (&) and the word “MADAM” (itself a palindrome) in brown, a drawing of a toad in green and brown, and decorative, presumably nematodean, green swirls.
Laced with imagery from punctuation, music, and zoology, this nonsense poem strikes the ear as akin to the poetry of Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll. Floyd sprinkled the stanzas with obscure words (unctious, otiose, eeled), juxtaposed “true toads” with “nematoads” at one point, and made a noun out of “hoodwink,” all for linguistic fun.
Floyd R. Peterson 