Jonesing for Jones

Jonathan Jones, a Briton living in Belgium, and whose blog Belgian Waffle is a favorite of mine, has become a manic pwoermdist of late, spurred on, apparently, by both InterNaPwoWriMo and my book, ntst: the collected pwoermds of geof huth. Jonathan is has the perfect minimalist mind for pwoermds, which you can see for yourself at his blog. While writing me about his first attempts at pwoermdy, he provided me with some of his insights into pwoermds, which I've extracted below:

Thanks for the initiation into the strange word (world?) of pwoermds.

I've just been over to the UK. Waiting for me at [my parents'] house was NTST.

I read the first few pages, got so excited that I started scribbling down my pwoermds. That I wrote nearly 50 in one day is testament to not having much else to do. Actually, they remind me of the cryptic crossword mindset I used to inhabit: a joy and a curse. You spend your day semi-abstracted turning words over and over inside and out certain that there's a 'find' somewhere waiting on the horizon of your vocabulary.

I'd dip back into your text and DAMN! you'd got there first and I'd have to sratch it out - I now realise my 'psilent' is one of yours (or more or less).

I wasn't sure mine were always 'pure' pwoermds (if such a thing exists). Is one allowed two words/ a phrase? At what point does the pwoermd meet the pun?

As I was swimming this morning, I was thinking of food equivalents - a good pwoermd is the literary equivalent of sushi? An 'amuse bouche' that titillates the palate and then is swallowed with relish? Little detonations/ de-notations of sense. Certainly I like the way they force attention on to tiny little energies of language. Space seems to open up in the joints. Articulations - that's the word. Plus a naughtiness - and danger even? - s writing verges upon illiteracy/ dyslexia/ the scrambled.

pw(o'er)md