Wilda Morris created “Is This Vanity?” from the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901). Please click here to read.

About the poem and the process of composing it, Wilda Morris writes:

This is a 12-word poem, with the words drawn (in the order in which they appear in the source text) from the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes. The title reflects the statement in this chapter (and elsewhere in Ecclesiastes) that “all is vanity.”

In its use of 12, this poem responds to our invitation to poets—on the occasion of our twelfth volume—to incorporate 12 in some way in their work.

Also by Wilda Morris at Heron Tree: The Sun.