In 2013, a biography of Morice was written by Tom Walz, Professor Emeritus of the University of Iowa and Joye Chizek, artist and writer called "Dr.

[2] He also wrote and illustrated his first book-length work, The Idiot and the Oddity: A Children's Epic Poem, a series of about 1,250 rhyming couplets about a leprechaun named Scratch O'Flattery.

In 1969, he received a BA in English with a creative writing minor[3] from St. Louis University, where he studied under John Knoepfle and Al Montesi.

In the Writers Workshop, he studied under Anselm Hollo, Marvin Bell, Donald Justice, Kathy Frasier, and Jack Marshalland was Beat critic Seymour Krim's research assistant.

The shortest poem in it is two lines long: He taught Introduction to Children's Literature, a graduate course in Elementary Education at the University of Iowa, for eight years.

He teaches writing classes at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.From 1972 to 1975, Morice perpetrated a literary hoax:[5] "He invented 'Joyce Holland',[6] a minimalist poet and performance artist who had no small effect on the poetry world.

To expand the hoax, Joyce Holland (Morice) put out thirteen issues of Matchbook, a magazine of one-word poems, costing five cents a copy.

Each issue was printed on one-inch square pages stapled inside of matchbooks donated by local businesses.

[8] About the extremes of poetry, critic Richard Morris writes: "Some styles go so far as to leave the traditional conception of the "poem" behind.

Casteel, an actress, played the physical role by giving readings and by meeting visiting writers to whom she was introduced as Joyce Holland.

[13] On March 3, 1973, he wrote his first Poetry Marathon[14] —1,000 poems in 12 hours— at the Grand Opening of Epstein's Bookstore,[3][15] the literary gathering place in Iowa City in the early seventies.

He made a costume to wear for the occasion: a white top hat, shirt, pants, shoes, and cane covered with letters of the alphabet in different colors.

Shortly after completion, he unwound the poem from Holland, tore it into small strips, and put them into amber glass medicine bottles labeled "Poetry Tonic."

After school, the cheerleaders practiced their favorite cheers, while Grulke's band rehearsed a jazzy version of "The Alphabet Song".

From July 4 - October 31, 2010 - in collaboration with the naming of Iowa City, IA as a UNESCO "City of Literature" (one of only three in the world named by this branch of the United Nations - Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia are the other two), Dave Morice challenged himself to write a world breaking poetry feat.

This poetry marathon was dedicated to Dave's sister Michele who was his literary cheerleader for many years who died aged 52 on February 22, 2010 of a brain tumor.

Working from the assistance of poetry patrons, Morice dedicated 4 months toward creating the ultimate record-breaking feat of writing.

Alphabet, Dave Morice has written marathons in Iowa, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and London, England.

After the 2010 display was removed, the University Libraries set forth on the task of taking the massive volume of poetry and binding it for their permanent collection.

The final text of 10,119, 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages was printed out by Bu Wilson and bound by Bill Voss of the University of Iowa Libraries.

The students exhibited three-dimensional poems—Technicolor Pages and Poetry Mobiles—at the Iowa City Public Library, and they published their own magazine, Speakeasy, in four issues.

Their creative writing students made "art object poems" and displayed them in the gallery at school and on the web.

[3] In return, he published a photocopy book titled Catalog of the Wooden Nickel Art Project[47] and sent a copy to each contributor.

Here are 50 of the wooden nickel artists: Muhammad Ali, Isaac Asimov, Pearl Bailey, Milton Berle, Larry Bird, Mel Brooks, Barbara Bush, John Cage, Frank Capra, Johnny Cash, Chevy Chase, Julie Christie, Jamie Lee Curtis, Doris Day, Robert De Niro, Federico Fellini, A.J.

Foyt, Lillian Gish, Veronica Hamil, Johnny Hart, Jesse Helms, Bob Hope, Ken Kesey, Henry Kissinger, Burt Lancaster, Spike Lee, Jack Lemmon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, Sol Le Witt, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Willie Nelson, Yoko Ono, George Plimpton, Pete Rozelle, Pete Seeger, Dr. Seuss, William Shatner, Frank Sinatra, Ringo Starr, Lily Tomlin, John Travolta, Garry Trudeau, Lana Turner, Johnny Unitas, Kurt Vonnegut, George Wallace, Henry Winkler, and "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Recipients had the choice of keeping the token or cashing it in for an impromptu poem, rhymed or unrhymed, that he would write on the spot.

The Alphabet Cube, a conceptual machine, shows one way in which palindromes, anagrams, and related letterplay forms can be represented in three-dimensional space.

In the Times Literary Supplement of London, a reviewer wrote: "The most ingenious publication of the century so far is The Dictionary of Wordplay.

He has also made artworks using less common methods and materials, such as Painted World Globe, Carved Yoyo, Cut Poker Cards, Pecan Portraits, and others.

The World's Tallest Tophat, about 12' high, had pages from The Word Circus, a book he illustrated for author Richard Lederer, glued around it.