Genre: Aerie

(I know it’s said that Janus is the god
from whence the name of January comes.
Yet I am not convinced, and thus I give
  an alternate explanation herein.)

In Babylon a group of writers met
(there were more than Hanging Gardens present),
and they encouraged new writers to attend
although they were somewhat cliquish to be sure.

This group, who called themselves the Xerxes Nine,
fancied fiction (some verse) and held the view
(perhaps they were anal), that all writing
be accountable to certain genres.

Back then, genres were far more specific:
gardens for example, and kings, and clubs.
So when the Xerxes Nine met every month,
the moderator would pick a genre.

They met once a few weeks following the
Saturnalia, (the celebration of
the winter solstice, or what we now call
Christmas), and Aerie was the genre chosen.

It so happens that the Hanging Gardens
were beset by many birds building nests;
this did not escape the moderator’s
purview, and so Aerie was apropos.

When the group first convened in the evening,
the genre was announced, and at the end
of the meeting it was announced again.
Routine, simply, succinct: “Genre, Aerie.”

For that once specific meeting at least.
And for some reason this saying became
popular among the folk, a mantra,
and was even chiseled into a wall.

Years later, the stone inscription survived
such that, at the Council of Nicaea,
knowledge of those two words was commonplace;
it became part of everyday culture.

The Gregorian calendar was then
conceived, and due to mispronunciation,
because of human tendency to morph,
“Genre Aerie” became January.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
January 3, 2014