Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Posted on Facebook by Jeff Shaumeyer:

Jeff writes:

Here’s an interior shot at Bowen’s Farm Supply. I took it mostly because I was moved by the poetry of the phrase “Mole Vole Rodent Control”.

The sort of expression that Zippy the Pinhead is inclined to treat as a mantra, repeating it over and over to savor it.

Background on the place: Bowen’s Farm Supply, 2550 Riva Rd., Annapolis MD; website here.

And the creatures: voles are indeed rodents (and garden pests), but moles are not (though they are lawn and garden pests).

As for the phrase, it’s in rhyming tetrameter, in what I judge to be trochaic meter with the first two feet short and a reversed final foot (final-foot reversals are not uncommon): S  S  SW  WS. Very satisfying.

This entry was posted on April 25, 2014 at 3:49 am and is filed under Language play, Poetic form, Rhyme. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.