Words removed from the Oxford’s Children’s Dictionary, their replacements, & other favorites

The President of the United States believes he is a victim.

He loves the words witch and hunt and very very bad.

He says believe me and in times gone by we would have

known the spell to slit his tongue as it twisted verity

and poisoned humans in his mouth. We would have conjured

goblins to change his arms to twigs, his head to a walnut.

If we had faith in vocabularies of imagination, apricot,

catkin, and lark could appear in the State of the Union.

Liquorice could become a tenet of the law. The United States

could trade its gold-eyed raptor for a porpoise or a radish.

But we have deal, celebrity, endangered. Food chain, database

and just plain base. Let’s hear emolument clause.

Now here’s a word, witch. Wicked.


Arlene Naganawa is our Poet in Residence for December.

Previously: "When You Are Old and Full of Sleep"