Autistic Poetry

This poem is in the form of a Word Ladder for Autodidactics.


      Autotutor : Tooterado
      --------- . ---------

     Rock  Rock : Rock  Tock
     Tick  Tock : Rock  Sock

     Awe   Toe  : Two   Tor
     Too   Tor  : Awe   Toe


     Rock  Tock : Tock  Rock
     Tick  Tock : Rock  Sock

     Awe   Toe  : Two   Tor
     Too   Tor  : Awe   Doe
 

     Awe   Toe  : Too   Tor
     Awe   Toe  : Two   Tor

     Too   Tor  : Awe   Toe
     Two   Tor  : Awe   Doe


     Rock  Rock : Tock  Talk
     Talk  Tock : Tick  Tock

     Awe   Toe  : Two   Tor
     Two   Tor  : Awe   Doe
                .

Word Latter Poetry may be an unfamiliar poetic form, so perhaps I should say more about it.

There is a kind of puzzle called a Word Ladder in which you start with a given word, and produce a sequence of words by changing one letter at a time, until you come to a final word that is in some sense the opposite of the starting word.

I've liberalized the rigid rules of word ladders puzzles and adapted it to poetry so that one starts with some simple sing-song phrase and gradually morphs it to something interesting. In the word latter poem, Autotutor Tooterado, there was an added wrinkle that to the left and right of the "reflector" the phrases are mirrored in some interesting (if vague) way.

I sent this puzzle to Wil Shortz, the NY Times and NPR Puzzlemeister, suggesting it as a challenge. If you look up the bio page on Wil Shortz on the NPR site, it says he lives in a Tudor style house and drives a sports car. So I proposed he take Autotutor : Tooterado and morph it into a 3-syllable word ladder reflector poem that ended with OddOldTudor : TwoDoorAudi.

Here is another one...

 Ring Ding : Ding Dong
 Sing Song : Ping Pong

 Bomp Romp : Camp Lamp
 Home Dome : Long Bong

 Word Bird : Herd Gird
 Nerd Furd : Chez Curd

 Bump Rump : Hump Dump
 Rink Dink : Tank Sank 

 Nite Nite : Wink Wink
 Frog Clog : Camp Sink

And here is one that a friend of mine called a 'Brain Gym for Autistics and Dyslexics'...


 Brain    Gym    :  Train   Him
 Blue     Rock   :  Wind    Sock

 Speckled Clod   :  Clip    Clop
 Black    Stone  :  Smokey  Groan

 Yellow   Pebble :  Wisdom  Gavel
 Green    Mound  :  Lichen  Bound

 Red      Clay   :  Lovers  Play
 Gray     Tablet :  Spirit  Inhabit

 Color    Lesson :  Rainbow Gladden