Friday, December 08, 2023

RIZZ ON RISE

by DeWitt Henry


Got rizz? The actor Tom Holland claimed to have none, sending the internet into a tizzy and inadvertently propelling the slang term to victory as Oxford’s Word of the Year. Photo: Araya Doheny/ Getty Images via The New York Times, December 3, 2023


Credit...Araya Doheny/Getty Images via The New York Times, December 3, 2023
Newly listed as noun
from cha-RIS-ma.

The power to captivate,
charm, compel, lead,
sway, stir, and attract 
mass followings.

Jeepers, creepers,
where’d you get those eyes?
How they hypnotize!

Personal magnetism.  It!
Grace.  Magic.  Presence.  Genius. 
Brand.  Whiz of a wiz 
in the sleight-of-hand biz.

Pot-bellied roue, quarterback,
or material girl. Swami
or clown: media messiahs,
though diz-dained by Orwellians,
have become so common
that abbreviation names 
their rise, claim, and fizz.


DeWitt Henry’s recent books are Restless For Words: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2023), a new U.S. edition of Foundlings: Found Poems From Prose (with art by Ruth K. Henry) and Trim Reckonings: Poems, both from Pierian Springs Press in 2023. He was the founding editor of Ploughshares and is Prof. Emeritus at Emerson College.