ultracrepidarian

This year, I’m writing poetry for every word tasting in November. I’m calling it Povember. Today, a rondeau redoubled.

An ultracrepidarian, by the way, is someone who offers opinions on matters beyond their expertise. Literally, it’s someone who goes beyond matters of shoemaking. It’s a reference to an anecdote about the Greek painter Apelles: a shoemaker corrected him on details of a shoe, and Apelles fixed the painting; the shoemaker, emboldened, offered opinions on the leg, and Apelles advised him not to go beyond the shoes.

If there any other words in this poem that are unfamiliar, look them up.

Beyond my shoes I choose to play
the latitudinarian,
but soles and souls combine to say
I’m ultracrepidarian.

The leaves and breeze contrarian
confront and hunt me on my way
and label me Icarian:
beyond my shoes I choose to play

as lips and fingers seek entrée
to the voluptuarian,
but attitude is lackaday;
the latitudinarian

is no more than librarian
for every unplayed yesterday.
I’m no futilitarian,
but soles and souls combine to say

what rain and ache will not allay,
nor lash of tongue vulgarian:
in what I can, not what I may,
I’m ultracrepidarian.

Be not brutalitarian;
my knowledge might yet earn its pay
and give to this grammarian
a college in how I may stray
beyond my shoes.