I decided to post a couple more poems before the month closes.
I’ve been sorting through my electronic files of poems and discovered some I’d forgotten.
These are written by me. Both are constrained poems. The first one is a haiku. The second is a Jenny.
Dinner Conversation
Said the cannibal
to his friend: this pirate’s chest
is filled with treasure.
Categorizing the Dead
Zombies are the least functional;
Vampires more functional;
Corpses the most functional –
Disintegrating
Becoming
As I have said before, the market for gadgets in this country is really
tremendous. There is constantly room for these novelties, and the public is
always willing to buy them. There is, in fact, a sort of craze, that many
people have, to be the first to have this or that new gadget to parade it
proudly among their friends…
Any lover of gadgetry should enjoy reading this article by the Hugo for which Science Fiction’s Hugo Awards are named.
Today is April 30th…so today is the last poem of my National Poetry Month poem-a-thon.
Conducting a search on the keywords ‘Up From the Ashes” and “Wabash Triangle Cafe” I found another Wabash Slam Poet I had lost track of over the years, but she’s also been invited to the performance on June 16th I mentioned a couple days ago. She was actually the winning slam poetess on the final week of the Wabash Triangle Cafe’s existence. March 16th, 1994. This wasn’t unusual, as she was one of the frequent winners. I’m thrilled to discover she will be at the showcase.
She posted on her blog/journal awhile back one of her popular poems from The Wabash era: Riding the Blue Bus (only for those over the age of 18)
The Re-echo Club (1913) is a book by poet, Carolyn Wells ‘revealing’ the ‘long hidden papers’ of a group of poets who gathered and rewrote poems in their own style. (And by coincidence…I don’t own this book, and discovered it after yesterday’s post…the first poem these poets rewrite is Burgess’s classic)
See if you can detect the poet who wrote the following:
Open then I flung a shutter,
And, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a Purple Cow which gayly tripped around my floor.
Not the least obeisance made she,
Not a moment stopped or stayed she,
But with mien of chorus lady perched herself above my door.
And that Purple Cow unflitting
Still is sitting — still is sitting
On that dusty bust of Dante just above my chamber door,
And her horns have all the seeming
Of a demon’s that is screaming,
And the arc-light o’er her streaming
Casts her shadow on the floor.
And my soul from out that pool of Purple Shadow on the floor
Shall be lifted Nevermore!
Epigraph to The Burgess Nonsense Book - by Gelett Burgess
To him who vainly conjures sleep
In counting visionary sheep;
To her who, in the dentist’s power
Would fain recall a gayer hour;
To him who visits tiresome aunts,
And comes upon this book by chance;
To her who in the hammock lies,
And, bored with Ibsen, BURGESS tries;
To those who can’t remember dates
While nonsense rhymes stick in their pates;
To those who buy, and do not borrow,
Nor put it off until to-morrow;
To all who in these pages look,
I dedicate this Nonsense Book!
Many people are familiar with half of Gelett Burgess’ most famous poem, The Purple Cow, but few remember it in it’s entirety:
The Purple Cow’s Projected Feast:
Reflections on a Mythic Beast,
Who’s Quite Remarkable, At Least.
I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one!
Here’s a fun collection of his poems, courtesy of Google Books:
Goops and how to be them A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both By Precept and Example With Ninety Drawings.
Some people are of the decided opinion that this generation of Americans have become decidedly uncouth. We should show our leaders respect, these individuals believe, and they are certain there was a purer time when society did not ridicule politicians like we do today.
How about the 1700s?
Tom Mullinex and Dick - by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
(Dick is Richard Tighe, a member of Irish parliament, and a Whig. Swift leaned towards Tory. Tom Mullinex was a half-crazed begger. That’s all you need to know.)
Tom and Dick had equal fame,
And both had equal knowledge;
Tom could write and spell his name,
But Dick had seen a college.
Dick a coxcomb, Tom was mad,
And both alike diverting,
Tom was held the merrier lad,
But Dick the best at farting.
Dick would cock his nose in scorn,
But Tom was kind and loving;
Tom a footboy bread and born,
But Dick was from an oven.
Dick could neatly dance a jig,
But Tom was best at borees;
Tom would pray for every Whig,
And Dick curse all the Tories.
Dick would make a woeful noise,
And scold at an election;
Tom huzza’d the blackguard boys,
And held them in subjection.
Tom could move with lordly grace,
Dick nimbly skip the gutter;
Tom could talk with solemn face,
But Dick could better sputter.
Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenced physician;
Tom was held by all the town
The deeper politician.
Tom had the genteeler swing,
His hat could nicely put on;
Dick knew better how to swing
His cane upon a button.
Dick for repartee was fit,
And Tom for deep discerning;
Dick was thought the brighter wit,
But Tom had better learning.
Dick with zealous no’s and aye’s,
Could roar as loud as Stentor;
In the House ’tis all he says;
But Tom is eloquenter.
Next time someone talks to you about showing respect to politicians, laugh in their face.
A couple months ago I mentioned The Roof is on Fire a documentary on the St. Louis Poetry Scene. The trailer video I included featured Slam Poet, Paul Stewart, but the documentary is actually, it appears, focused more broadly.
I have been asked to perform 2-3 poems at a poetry showcase that will become part of the documentary. Here are the details I know so far:
I don’t know who will be on the list of poets. I can come up with a list of who I would send invitations to if I were putting this together. I remember the names of most of the poets who performed at the Wabash, and have remained in touch with a handful. Who will be available is not a question I can answer at this time. But I will be there.
And oh yes. I am 99.999999% likely to perform Sick Puppy as one of the three poems. I perform it so rarely nowadays, that will be an added plus. I am also not the only poet with poetry unsuitable for youngsters. So parents should keep that in mind.
The link is to a page with 25 pictures of dogs. All pure-breds. Each taken from breeder’s websites for authenticty. Only one is a pit bull. Pit bulls are of course blamed for a lot of attacks…but if they’re being misidentified, then the statistics are incorrect.
It’s also a good test to see how well you can identify other breeds. Though there are a few exotic ones in the bunch that will probably be unrecognizable to most.
ODI et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
I HATE and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment.
#54
Otho’s head (very small it is)
and your half-washed legs, rustic Erius,
the subtle and smooth farting of Libo,
these points at least, if not all about them, I should wish to be disliked
by you and Fuficius, that old fellow renewed to youth again.
You will again be angered by my iambics,
my innocent iambics, you one and only general.
I’m not going to get distracted on this mission of poetry if I’ve made it this far into the month. It might be 8 pm, but I’m not going to miss a day on April 25th.
I looked back over the month to see the poets I’ve covered. No poems by Howard Nemerov, one of my favorite modern poets, but I’m not thrilled with the choices available online. His works aren’t public domain, so I don’t feel comfortable reprinting them in full. Also no poems by Robert Frost, who I admire greatly. But his poetry is so well known I don’t feel a need to pass it around more.
I think today is my tribute to Hartley David Coleridge. The poet who got lost in his father’s shadow. Some ranked him “among the foremost sonneteers in our language.” But he wrote poems that weren’t sonnets as well. I choose the below poem, because I like the idea of immortalizing one’s animal companion. When Rembrandt painted himself with his dog, he made his dog anonymous. Today we know what his dog looked like, but not his (or her) name. Not so Hartley’s cat.
To A Cat - by Hartley David Coleridge
Nelly, methinks, ‘twixt thee and me
There is a kind of sympathy;
And could we interchange our nature, –
If I were cat, thou human creature, –
I should, like thee, be no great mouser,
And thou, like me, no great composer;
For, like thy plaintive mews, my muse
With villainous whine doth fate abuse,
Because it hath not made me sleek
As golden down on Cupid’s cheek;
And yet thou canst upon the rug lie,
Stretch’d out like snail, or curl’d up snugly,
As if thou wert not lean or ugly;
And I, who in poetic flights
Sometimes complain of sleepless nights,
Regardless of the sun in heaven,
Am apt to doze till past eleven, –
The world would just the same go round
If I were hang’d and thou wert drown’d;
There is one difference, ’tis true, –
Thou dost not know it, and I do.
Always on the lookout for ways for readers of my blog to watch the Academy Award winning short film, West Bank Story.
And always on the lookout for ways for me to earn a little fundage from my Amazon Associates Store
I would be extremely remiss if I didn’t point out that on May 1, a collection is being released on DVD that contains
1) The Academy Award winning Live Short - West Bank Story
2) The other nominees for the Live Short category
3) The Academy Award winning Animated Short - The Danish Poet
4) The nominated animated short - Maestro
5) and a handful of other random bonus shorts (at least, they appear random to me. Maybe they’re not random)
That seems to be a nice selection. For only $22.50 from Amazon. ($29.98 List Price).
And just as a sidenote, I have absolutely no control over what the text in the linkage below reads.
These films can be seen as a package on several movie screens scattered throughout the country (Unfortunately, not in St. Louis. Shelbyville, IL, 2 hours 15 min away, is the closest, I think.)
Way on the other side of the Hudson,
deep in the bosom of suburbia,
I met a young girl, she sang mighty fine,
Tears on My Pillow and Ave Maria.
Standing by the waterfall in Paramus Park
she was working for the Friends-of-BAI
She was collecting quarters in a paper cup.
She was looking for change and so was I.
I am in love with the McDonald’s Girl
She has the smile of innocence oh so tender and warm.
I am in love with the McDonald’s Girl
She is an angel in a polyester uniform
I was at a science fiction convention this past weekend. That pretty much means, by definition, that I’ve added books to my library.
Purchased directly from the author
Setting Suns - by Elizabeth Donald. A collection of short horror fiction
Dregs - by Barri L Bumgarner. This new novel (officially released April 2007) isn’t science fiction, but an unfortunately timely tale of high school violence.
Won at the Charity Auction
(*) Christmas Stars - a collection of short sf/fantasy stories related to the winter holiday by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, William Gibson, Anne McCaffrey and Connie Willis.
(*) Legends II - A collection of 11 short novels by fantasy writers set in their famous fictional universes. It includes a Shannara novel by Terry Brooks, a Pern novel by Anne McCaffrey, a Riftwar novel by Raymond Feist, and an Alvin Maker novel by Orson Scott Card.
The Collected Stories of Greg Bear - A collection of short stories from Greg Bear spanning 30 years of his career.
barthpenn@heaven.org by Kevin Scott Collier - (already finished) A young adult novel about an angel who makes a mistake when Heaven installs an email system, and accidentally sends a ten year old boy on Earth an email An email conversation begins between the two that ripples outwards. This religious ‘fable’ is a quick read, and heartwarming. At worst, a little too preachy.
Today’s poetry is more song lyrics, this time by humorous song writer extraordinaire - Tom Lehrer.
Hanukah in Santa Monica - by Tom Lehrer
I’m spending Hanukah in Santa Monica,
Wearing sandals, lighting candles by the sea.
I spent Shavu’ot in East Saint Louis,
A charming spot, but clearly not the spot for me.
Those eastern winters, I can’t endure ‘em,
So every year I pack my gear and come out here til Purim.
Rosh Hashana I spend in Arizona.
And Yom Kippur way down in Mississipper.
But in December there’s just one place for me.
Amid the California flora I’ll be lighting my menorah.
Like a baby in its cradle I’ll be playing with my dreidel,
Spending Hanukah, in Santa Monica, by the Sea!
I’m spending Hanukah in Santa Monica,
Wearing sandals, lighting candles by the sea.
I spent Shavu’ot in East Saint Louis,
A charming spot, but clearly not the spot for me.
Those eastern winters, I can’t endure ‘em,
So every year I pack my gear and come out here til Purim.
Rosh Hashana I spend in Arizona,
And Yom Kippur way down in Mississipper.
But in December there’s just one place for me.
Amid the California flora I’ll be lighting my menorah.
Like a baby in its cradle I’ll be playing with my dreidel.
Here’s to Judas Macabeus, boy if he could only see us,
Spending Hanukah, in Santa Monica, by the Sea!
Since today is the last day of ShowMeCon, I thought I would post a poem by Isaac Asimov
The Clone Song
(1) Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to X
And after it’s grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
(Chorus) Clone, clone of my own
With its Y chromosome changed to X
And when I’m alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.
(2) Oh, give me a clone
Is my sorrowful moan,
A clone that is wholly my own.
And if she’s X-X
And the feminine sex
Oh, what fun we will have when we’re prone.
(3) My heart’s not of stone,
As I’ve frequently shown
When alone with my own little X
And after we’ve dined,
I am sure we will find
Better incest then Oedipus Rex.
(4) Why should such sex vex
Or disturb or perplex
Or induce a disparaging tone?
After all, don’t you see
Since we’re both of us me
When we’re having sex, I’m alone.
(5) And after I’m done
She will still have her fun
For I’ll clone myself twice ere I die.
And this time without fail
They’ll be both of them male
And they’ll each ravage her by and by
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Comment
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying —
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Joy Davidman (Gresham) was often overshadowed by her famous husband, CS Lewis. Here’s a poem she wrote in 1935.
Near Catalonia
We have the sweet noise of the sea at our back
and before us the bitter shouting of the gun;
and the brass wing of aeroplanes and the sun
that walks about us burning. Here we wound
our feet on metal fragments of the bomb,
the sword unburied and the poisoned ground.
Here we stand; here we lie; here we must see
what we can find potent and good to set
between the Fascist and the deep blue sea.
If we had bricks that could make a wall we would use them,
but bricks will break under a cannonball;
if we had iron we would make a wall,
but iron rings and splinters at the bomb
and wings go across the sky and over a wall,
and if we made a barrier with our earth
they would murder the earth with Fascist poison,
and no one will give us iron for the wall.
We have only the bodies of men to put together,
the wincing flesh, the peeled white forking stick,
easily broken, easily made sick,
frightened of pain and spoiled by evil weather;
we have only the most brittle of all things the man
and the heart the most iron admirable thing of all,
and putting these together will make a wall.
a consortium of approximately 200 leading industry players covering telecommunications, equipment, computing, networking and service provider companies.
I’ve never heard of them, but I don’t follow the DSL industry. So I assume they are a significant consortium, as I do recognize entries on their membership list
There’s a table showing: Individual Country DSL Subscriber Growth in the Middle East and Africa. Number 1 on the list is: Turkey, with 1,541,947 subscribers in 2005 and 2,935,900 subscribers in 2006. I assume that is accurate.
But there is one country in the Middle East that doesn’t appear in the chart at all. I bet you can guess. According to one source it also has 3 million users, so depending upon whether that is rounding up or down, it should be immediately above or below Turkey in total numbers, which is how the chart is sorted. Palestine is on the list, near the botttom, with 0% growth and 7,665 subscribers.
Of course, to be fair, this ‘news release’ was for a presentation in Dubai. I realize this, which is why I am laughing, and not angry. If they were really trying to please their audience, though, I would have expected Palestine to be at the top of the list in number of subscribers, because they would have called it all one state. All they did, though, was ignore the existence of Israel completely. (I guess it’s in a different geographical region.)
Found at Lady-Light’s, though she seems to be a little more upset about this than I.
Here’s a great video - somewhat related, also nabbed from Lady-Light
I will be at the Maryville Marriott this weekend. (Take the Maryville University exit off 40/64 West, make a right, and it will be on your left.)
ShowMeCon, the junior St. Louis Area Science Fiction Convention, is having their 5th annual convention. (Archon is the senior con, with 30 under its belt.)
Once again my responsibility is the “hospitality room”, though I will need to spend less time there than in past years, so if you make it down there, you might find me elsewhere during the day. But I will be in the hospitality room at night.
Since he’s a likely Presidential contender in 2008, and it’s been 12 years since he said this so some may have forgotte, I thought I would dredge up this wonderful quote from 1995
“If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they’re relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.” — Adjunct Professor Newt Gingrich, Reinhardt College, January 7, 1995, “Renewing American Civilization.”
And here’s a poll, then reporter, now SF writer, John Scalzi conducted at the time.
Due to the actions of the extremist far-right militia-types in recent years on this date, the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord is often not emphasized. The official holiday in a handful of states (MA, ME, and WI) is the Third Monday in April, which is one of the reasons people were given an extra day to do their taxes this year. (No, I don’t know why Wisconsin.) Still, I remember it on April 19th because of its coinciding with other dates in history — such as the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion, and more recently, Benedict XVI becoming Pope.
Every schoolchild knows that Paul Revere rode midnight April 18th, but many don’t realize there were two other riders. William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott. Here’s a poem about Dawes.
The Midnight Ride of William Dawes - by Helen F Moore (1896)
I am a wandering, bitter shade,
Never of me was a hero made;
Poets have never sung my praise,
Nobody crowned my brow with bays;
And if you ask me the fatal cause,
I answer only, “My name was Dawes”
‘Tis all very well for the children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear –
My name was Dawes and his Revere.
When the lights from the old North Church flashed out,
Paul Revere was waiting about,
But I was already on my way.
The shadows of night fell cold and gray
As I rode, with never a break or a pause;
But what was the use, when my name was Dawes!
History rings with his silvery name;
Closed to me are the portals of fame.
Had he been Dawes and I Revere,
No one had heard of him, I fear.
No one has heard of me because
He was Revere and I was Dawes.
I received a suggestion in my inbox for more musical poetry.
I did include the music videos of Ginsberg and McKennitt earlier in the month, but if there’s a desire for more, I can satisfy it.
Here’s a selection of NewsPoetry Music. We start off with Billy Bragg, four and a half years ago, singing about the Price of Oil. We then jump back a few decades to the late Phil Ochs. YouTube will only allow you to view four videos ‘offsite’, so if after the first four videos you follow the link to YouTube, you’ll hear more of Phil, and you will be rewarded at the end of the playlist with a Borat song. (A song I was disappointed didn’t appear in the movie.)
I thought I would share one of my favorite poems by a cousin of mine…
The Battle Hymn of the Republic - Updated - by Mark Twain (1901)
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps-
His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!”
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom-and for others’ goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich –
Our god is marching on.
Anna, a friend and fellow writer just returned from a trip to Buenos Aires, and brought me back a gift. Outside of Israel and the US, Buenos Aires has the third largest Jewish population of any city in the world. (Paris and London being #1 and #2 respectively) However, outside of Israel, Buenos Aires has the only kosher McDonalds.
She brought me a placemat:
I wish my scanner were a bit larger. She translated it for me, and it basically explains to the non-Jewish customer what ‘kosher’ means.
She also took a picture of a sign outside the restaurant, which appears to be inside a mall:
During the massacre of the students at Virginia Tech, one profesor threw himself at the shooter as he entered his classroom — sacrificing his life, and saving the lives of all his students who escaped out a window.
The professor, Liviu Librescu, was a Holocaust survivor, and yesterday was officially Holocaust Remembrance Day. (It had escaped my notice, as I always think of April 19th being the anniversary of the Warsaw Rebellion)
Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
Modern English
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
Well…having exhausted research on one branch of my family tree (my father’s), I went to my mother’s. Her family, especially the ones that came over from Holland in the 1600-1700s have done a great job of tracking their ancestry.
Ancestry.com has this thing called One-World-Tree, where everyone enters their trees, and thus there’s a chance of trees combining.
I found my mother’s mother on this One-World-Tree and then asked them the question: Any Famous Relatives?
I nearly fainted with the results.
Presidents: Ford, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Fillmore
Entertainers: Elvis Presley, Shirley Temple, Humphrey Bogart
Writers: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury
But all of these are distant cousins, several times removed. Fun, but not the cherry at the top of this Sundae.
My 18th Great Grandfather (YES! 18th!) lived from 1343 - 1400. He wrote poetry. I’m going to say no more. You can look it up on Google. 1343 1400 poet. Top results. There was only one person living from 1343-1400 writing poetry that I would be this excited about anyway. Yes. Him!
I know this is completely dependent upon the fact that everyone involved entered their family tree correctly. Shush!
I am SO including this in every bio I send to editors from now on!
I noticed Nobody has a comic goozle up today. (a puzzle that might require Google, or another search engine, to solve.) They’ve been missing in action since last October, which has been disappointing. I’ve always enjoyed their puzzles. As much of a fan of comics as I am, this one is stumping me, as they’re saying no knowledge of comics is required.
Some would say that my sharing one poem by Rod McKuen during National Poetry Month is one too many.
But two?!
However, a friend has lost a loved one recently, and I thought of a Rod McKuen poem.
Thoughts on Capital Punishment
Here are the best lines from the poem:
There ought to be something, something that’s fair
to avenge Mrs. Badger as she waits in her lair
for her husband who lies with his guts spilling out
cause he didn’t know what automobiles were about.
Hell on the highway, at the very least
should await the driver
driving over a beast.
I should clarify. My friend didn’t lose his animal friend to a careless driver, but it did die of unusual circumstances.
I’ll counterbalance the crime of posting another McKuen poem with posting a poem by Victor Hugo. The translation is 19th century in style, but more readable than some I’ve seen:
All Winged Creatures I Have Loved
from: Sunbeams and Shadows
Translated by: Henry Carrington
All the winged creatures I have loved !
And when, a child, I ‘neath the thicket roved,
I from their nests the little birds conveyed –
At first, of reeds I cages for them made,
Where, mid green mosses, I to tame them tried.
Later, I used to leave the windows wide :
They flew not off, or if the woods their choice,
Still they returned whene’er they heard my voice.
A dove and I long lived in friendliness !
Now I the art of taming souls possess.
For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.
I liked the ‘Joseph Hella’ quote in the upper right,
but fell in love with the new translation of Amichai:
Hebrew steppin’ n Arabic writ’n go fizzle east ta wizzay
Latin spendin’ fizzle wizzle ta east.
Languages is like cats:
You mizzle not stroke they hizzle tha wrong way.
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
Today is also Quasimodo Sunday. The first Sunday after Easter. Of course, most people think Quasimodo is a hunchback. In honor of that, here’s La Esmeralda, Victor Hugo’s reworking of his novel, Notre Dame de Paris, into dramatic verse. It’s in the original French.
Pixel Art is a retro form of digital art which is gaining a lot in popularity these days. Pixel art is generally thought of as a computer graphic where the image is literally drawn pixel-by-pixel in tiny detail, usually using a limited color palette and primitive computer graphics tools.
If you had enough space, and enough colored post it notes, you could recreate 1980s arcade games, such as:
A friend of mine got me interested in researching my genealogy online. My family has actually already been pretty good about this, asking elder members about what they know while they’re still around to tell us. So as many census forms, ship passenger lists, and military records I have found, it hasn’t extended the chart another generation yet. But as my mother told me recently, it’s nice to have the documentation confirming what we thought.
My most recent find was a 1901 census from England containing my great-great grandparents and their children: Barney and his siblings. (Barney - The not-so-Irish great-grandfather born on March 17th.) I love England’s census forms. They have one piece of data US census forms don’t have. Street address. Sure, it’s irrelevant trivia…except next time I’m in London I know what street to walk down.
For those of my readers familiar with London (and I know there are at least a couple) they lived in Marylebone, now part of Westminster, at 56 Wells Street, not too far from Hyde and Regent’s parks. (Yes, I looked it up on Google Maps). Apparently it’s part of the Soho/Noho area. Maybe while I’m walking down the street, I’ll eat some sushi.
Barney claimed in the bio he submitted to Who’s Who in North St. Louis - 1925 that he learned tailoring “at the London Polytechnic” and was “a student at Oxford.”
What is now Westminster University at that time was under the name of Regent Street Polytechnic, and was located at 309 Regent Street. Locals probably just called it Polytechnic, since that was a prior name, and it was at that time part of London. It’s only four to five blocks from where he lived, which got me to research the school a bit more.
My family has chuckled at the idea of him attending college when he probably never finished high school. But as it turns out, I think we may have been unfair. Regent Street Polytechnic’s founder, Quintin Hogg, had a mission “to provide for the athletic, intellectual, social and religious needs of young men, and to this end he provided a range of sporting and social facilities as well as an increasing range of educational and vocational classes.” It appears he received his training from a charitable institution not too much different from the one his great-grandson works for today.
Now, to his claim that he was a “student at Oxford.” He doesn’t say Oxford ‘College’ or ‘University’, which helps more than you might imagine. Oxford England is about sixty miles away, however, a quick look at the maps linked to above, and Wells Street intersects with Oxford Street, a few blocks from where the Oxford Circus underground stop is today, and was in 1901, though then it was part of the Central London Railway.
So it seems likely that Barney was a ’student of life’ on Oxford Street.
I posted this poem back in October, but at the Friday night Hartford Cafe open mic tonight, a friend had brought the New Yorker Book of Poems, and it was contained within the pages, so it made me think of it again. As I mentioned back in October, when WCW wrote this poem, Laurence Tureaud was only 11 years old — so the image that appears in my mind wasn’t the image WCW intended. Still, I think the poem works, and I don’t think the image in my mind is too far off from WCW’s intent.
Mr T.
bareheaded
in a soiled undershirt
his hair standing out
on all sides
stood on his toes
heels together
arms gracefully
for the moment
curled above his head.
Then he whirled about
bounded
into the air
and with an entrechat
perfectly achieved
completed the figure.
My mother
taken by surprise
where she sat
in her invalid's chair
was left speechless.
Bravo! she cried at last
and clapped her hands.
The man's wife
came from the kitchen:
What goes on here? she said.
But the show was over.
West Bank Story is on YouTube. The short film that won the Oscar. The short film starring my cousin. It might not be on YouTube for long. It is a violation of copyright and all. But if you still haven’t had a chance to see it, and want to watch it first before you make up your mind to spend I think $3 to download it from ITunes…
If someone were to admit they liked Rod McKuen’s poetry, it might be considered almost as embarassing as if they were to admit they liked David Cassidy’s music.
I was looking at “Today in History” for inspiration, and it is Cassidy’s 57th birthday today. The friend of mine who recently purchased a Partridge Family Lunchbox on Ebay will likely be very upset with me for mentioning how old he is. But, on the other hand, she probably knows.
I’m not a Rod McKuen fan, but I do like the song, Seasons in the Sun. He didn’t write it, but he did translate it from French into English. (Then Terry Jacks reworked the music; Jacks’ version is better. You can hear McKuen’s version performed by The Kingston Trio.)
When people talk about Lewis Carroll they usually think of Alice in Wonderland, or Jabberwocky.
My favorite Carroll piece is The Hunting of the Snark. It’s a long poem (an excerpt below) but I’ve thought that if the events in Fahrenheit 451 occurred, it would be one of the things I might attempt to memorize.
Excerpt from Fit the First
There was one who was famed for the number of things
He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
And the clothes he had bought for the trip.
He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
They were all left behind on the beach.
The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pairs of boots–but the worst of it was,
He had wholly forgotten his name.
He would answer to “Hi!” or to any loud cry,
Such as “Fry me!” or “Fritter my wig!”
To “What-you-may-call-um!” or “What-was-his-name!”
But especially “Thing-um-a-jig!”
While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him “Candle-ends,”
And his enemies “Toasted-cheese.”
“His form in ungainly–his intellect small–”
(So the Bellman would often remark)
“But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.”
He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare
With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
“Just to keep up its spirits,” he said.
He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late–
And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad–
He could only bake Bridecake–for which, I may state,
No materials were to be had.
Thelma Ireland is another poet I never knew existed prior to this month; however, I didn’t discover her due to searching for poets to blog about.
I should start at the beginning of this saga, but the actual beginning is a little confusing. Instead, I will start with a few samples of her poetry.
Culinary
THE waves churn on the sandy beach
In turbulent regime.
No wonder that each mound of blue
Is topped with white whipped cream.
Autumn
THE woods should be reported,
The government be told,
The criminal be punished-
The trees are hoarding gold.
Both of these, and many more, can be found at the LDS library. My guess is she was a member of the church.
Searches on her name yield results for poetry as far back as 1925 and as recently as 2005. Her name appeared in an “Index to Poetry for Children and Young People: 1970-75″, which you will see why that is important shortly.
She apparently liked to write about Autumn a lot. Here’s another one of her Autumn poems.
Cornflake leaves
Beneath the trees–
Are they a breakfast
for the breeze?
Variations have appeared elsewhere uncredited. The source above is not an ‘official’ source, and it may be miscredited. However, stylistically, I have to admit, it is similar to Ireland’s other works.
Why am I reluctant to admit this? I’ve seen a version of the poem (identical, except it doesn’t contain the ‘a’ in the third line) credited to one other poet. Myself.
I blogged about Cryptomnesia last April. It seems I may have been victimized by it at an early age. I was certain I wrote that poem at the age of six in 1975. I have the poem written in my six-year-old handwriting on wide-lined paper. It’s certainly above and beyond the quality of my first short story, or the other poem I wrote in October of 1975. I’ve never claimed to be a child prodigy. I always assumed it was a fluke that I wrote something that good at age six. But it was in my handwriting, and dated, so there was no reason not to believe it was mine.
When I discovered she appeared in the 1970-75 index for Children’s poetry, I decided to find a copy of
