I have been seriously pursuing excellence in acrostic poetry for more than eleven years. The most excellent, the Holy Grail, of acrostic poetry is an array of words with a flawless meter and rhyme scheme, with something important to say, well said, in the content of the poetry, and with the acrostic words providing the ideally meaningful title of the poem.

This may seem like an odd pursuit to be throwing over a decade’s effort toward its furtherance. But if you want to be not merely a poet, nor even a Capital-P Poet, but the absolute best P*O*E*T it is in you to be, writing acrostic poetry makes sense. You are challenged to find words to fit the array, and the words you find may be new to you. They then become part of your arsenal. And it is even possible, as has happened today on my page, that you are compelled to bring into being words that did not yet exist. That may seem like cheating, but did you know that the name Wendy did not exist until J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, invented it?

Notice, though, how few words there are in the dual array above. How there are always three letters between acrostic elements. This is as minimal as I can possibly get with double and triple acrostic.  Let us unfold and enhance the array:

Photon Refractor

1: Photon

Prest/Helio/Onion

2: Refractor

Resurrect/Ecstatico/Felicitor

A photon is an infinitesimal thing that may or may not be visible light, depending on its frequency. PHO is something to eat. TON is a measure of heaviness. A photon has a rest mass of zero.

Prest? It’s a variant of Pressed, just as Blest is a variant of Blessed. Helio? Relates to the Sun, to mythology, and to the flower Heliotrope. Onion? It may remind people of getting to the truth, as a typical onion has many peelable layers.

A refractor is something that alters the path of a…particle? wave? Wavicle. REF is short for Referee. RAC is a versatile acronym. Here is a partial list, courtesy of The Free Dictionary:

It also may be pronounced “rack” which may be defined as an organizational substrate for an array of things. Above this paragraph is a RAC rack.

It is also “car” backwards.

As for Tor, it is “a hill or rocky peak” according to any number of sources. It is also a paperback book publisher specialing in the otherworldly.

Resurrection is coming back to life. Ecstatico is kind-of Spanglish for “being in a joyously energized place.” Felicitor has Happiness as its root and “one who brings about” as a suffix.

When you get this minimal, some of the heavy meaning-lift will be done by the reader. An analogous creation that comes to my mind is “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” a painting by Pablo Picasso. The first time I saw the painting I was repelled. It seemed ugly. Ugly colors, variably attentive anatomy, weird color and composition choices. But it has historical significance, and has been called “the first truly Cubist painting.” And the more you live with it visually, the more a word emerges from the mist: Extraordinary.