Uncle Wesli's Daily Epitaph for today, Tuesday, August 4, 2009
“The
Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor” for Tuesday, August 4th,
2009, says these things on-line:
“The deans got a hold
of the pamphlet,” and, “the 19-year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with a
16-year-old girl, the daughter of a English pub owner.”
Herewith, an epitaph for Shelley by his admirer Wesli Court, (all epitaphs copyrighted 2009, all rights reserved):
R.I.P. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
August 4, 1792-July 8, 1822
He said to the skylark, “bird thou never wert,”
A line for which no poet would give his shirt,
Nor even a pair of socks that were worn and smelly.
Nevertheless, we honor Percy Shelley.
An epitaph for August 5th:
R.I.P. CONRAD AIKEN
August 5, 1889-August 17, 1973
He found his parents’ murder-suicide
When he was but a child. Although he tried
His hand at death himself he was not taken
Till age took pity on old Conrad
Aiken.
On Thursday, August 6th, in his piece on Tennyson’s birthday, Mr. Keillor wrote,
“They had traveled together through out Europe, and some scholars speculate that their relationship was more than platonic. Eventually, Hallam had become engaged to his Tennyson's sister.”
Keillor provides such fine examples of composition in the English language for the writers of America to emulate.
Here is an epitaph for Tennyson :
R.I.P. ALFRED TENNYSON
August 6,
1809-October 6, 1892
The purest poet of his
time,
He did nothing else but
rhyme,
So Fate bestowed the
benison
Of fame and wealth on
Tennyson.
On
Friday, August 7, 2009, in his “Writer’s Almanac” Garrison Keillor quoted
Leonard Nathan’s poem “Not to Trouble You” to this effect:
“Not to trouble you with
love, I mean / those adolescent dreams of great, of greater, / or of greatest
loving, let alone / the crumbly personal kind—“
One
wonders in what way the personal kind of love is “crumbly”? Is it the same sort
of thing as finding while putting on one’s shoes in the morning that “half a
loafer is better than none”? Or that down south things aren’t what they’re
crackered up to be? No, it’s probably more like working in a bleu cheese
factory and finding that it’s a crumbly job after all.
Keillor also
reported that, “On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor
of the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce.”
One
had no idea that an inanimate object like a novel could bring suit in a U. S.
Court of Appeals! Gosh, one can learn so many things by reading “The Writer’s Almanac”
on-line every morning.
On
Sunday, August the 8, 2009, Garrison Keillor’s once again taught’s us something
we didn’t know’s about English; he’s wrote,“Izaak Walton's wrote mostly biographies,” and I’s
wrote this in emulation of him’s wonderful way’s with word’s.
Keillor also reminded
us that today is Dryden's birthday and that “Nearly all of his writing he composed in heroic couplets,” so here’s
another epitaph by Wesli Court:
R.I.P. JOHN DRYDEN
August 9, 1631-13 May
1700
When once he learned to
write in pairs
Of lines he gave himself
no airs
And never after tried to
widen
The field of vision of
John Dryden.
And here's one for Jack Foley:
R.I.P.
JACK FOLEY
August
9, 1940
Here lies Jack Foley
Decomposing slowly.
When he composed faster
It was a disaster.
REPLY
Here lies the Turk
Who wrote with a smirk,
Decried by all men
When he wrote with a pen.
Jack Foley
But on a computer
None were acuter.
Happy 69 to you, though, Jack,
Wesli
From Neeli Cherkovski:
JACK FOLEY AT 69
holding one end of time
at the end of the day
holding one end of the
sun
here in the beginning
holding time, hovering
thinking, making a dream
remain so that the land
inside of it might be
revealed
as the passage widens
holding a dream inside
of time, telling the
moon
I love you everywhere
I am 69, the world is
nearly as old as I am
there in the beginning
of days as the light
of the sun and moon spar
against the distant
longing to be for
ever who I am
From Jake Berry:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
69 sure looks fine on
you
and I don't mean to
imply
any sexual act
Besides, using the
Clinton definition,
the 69 position
is not actually sex in
fact
What is it then?
It's pleasure, it's
poetry,
it's a tap dance or
foxtrot
depending on the music
you've got
And what could be more
amusing
than a life with the
muses
whether you abuse it or
not?
Take the extremes
the path of excess
wisdom rolls in like the
tide.
69 is joy f
or every girl and boy
willing to take the
ride.
And the ride has just
begun
there's so much left to
be done,
so many songs to write
and sing.
So pick up your lyre
and Dionysian fire
and mount the horse with
wings!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to one hell of a poet
My hat, and most of my
hair,
is off to you.
From Ivan Arguelles:
holy jumping bejeezus
if this monument hasn't
put on its quid of
years!
silently heaped up time
has joined its holy 69 t
o the one you left over
last but leaping higher
still one hand in
heaven
and t'other groping
for the Light!
From Mary-Marcia Casoly:
For Jack Foley 9669/MM
(Happy
Birthday) Selamat Ulang Tahu*
don’t be afraid of the
big barong
dance with the monkey
6 &9 ying/yang
realize how much you are
loved by so many
numerical acrobats 6
& 9 tumble
continue to bloom
protectors
wise child throughout
life
appear as twins standing
for each other
which is which, give
your reasons...
the brightest star
of Leo
morning and night 6
& 9 sun moon
a myriad of subtle ways
will tell
being 69 light years
from the earth...
starbeam of Leo
*Indonesian for
according to Google translator
From Katherine Hastings:
TWELVE LINES STOLEN ALMOST RANDOMLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT
for Jack on his
69th Birthday
Ecstatic heights in
thought and rhyme
The song of waiting and
the shock of time
You must look up at the
sky and act as if
The dream now beats more
quickly than blood
This is the secret lamp
burning under our gestures
In the air that consumes
and strengthens
Burning red, jumbled and
quivering
Each summer time to
life. Lo! This is he,
And there could I marvel
(his) birthday,
Pools and pasture shade
With bannerets and
censors, with wimples and magic veils
The Birth of a Nation*
*How Jack signed his email
tonight.
Jack's commentary:
Selamat Ulang Tahu
To me on my 6 plus 9
John Dryden should also
rate a wahoo
His birth date’s the
same as mine
As I scribble on scraps
which I write between naps
In this mighty disorder
called my den
’Twould be fine were I
known as only the clone
Of that wonderful poet
John Dryden
Now here’s an
epitaph for Monday, August 10th 2009, and a homage (yes, ahomage,
unless you’re Cockney) to the Spectrist poets:
Here is an epitaph for Tuesday, August 11th, 2009:
R.I.P. LOUISE BOGAN
August 11,
1897-February 4, 1970
Her mother flaunted each
affair
Which taught the young
Louise to fear
Uncertainty, and thus
began
The formal structures of
Bogan.
Here is an epitaph for Wedesday, August, 12, 2009:
BLUES
FOR DONALD JUSTICE
12
August 1925-6 August 2004
Well,
Don, I guess we knew you’d have to leave;
We
hoped not, but we saw you had to leave,
And
now we see it’s time for us to grieve.
We
knew you young, we knew you when we all
Were
young — you included, when we all
Were
wrapped in language, held in hypnotic thrall
By
sound and metre, couplet, quatrain, thrime,
By
rhythm in the line, caesura, rhyme,
And
it was you who showed us how to chime.
You
read our work with care, closely, with care.
You
read us with intelligence and care.
You
let your annoyance show, but you were fair
When
we were lax or earless, when we were mules.
Thank you for giving us the poet’s tools.
Copyright 2009 by Lewis Turco. All rights reserved.
Garrison
Keillor wrote of William Maxwell in “The Writer’s Almanac” for Sunday,
August 16, “His last book, a
collection of stories and fables called All the Days and Nights, he first started to work on, he said, ‘because my
wife like to have me tell her stories when we were in bed in the dark before
falling asleep.’ “
Me
like that she like that, like, what not to like?
Here
is a Wesli Court epitaph for today:
R.I.P.
ANDREW MARVELL
31
March 1621 – 16 August 1678)
He
had not world enough, nor time,
For
coyness, but enough for rime
To
spin its web and develop larval
Verse
forms to make Andrew Marvell.
Here is an epitaph for Monday,
August 17, 2009:
R.I.P. TED HUGHES
August 17, 1930 –
October 28, 1998
“He often put himself
into a trance before he writing,
and he tried to take
the point of view of animals.”
— Garrison Keillor.
“He often put himself into
a trance
Before he writing,” and
before he dance.
He always asking animals
for views,
And
now he make believe he dead Ted Hughes.
Today, Tuesday,
August 18, 2009, Garrison Keillor published a poem titled “This Longing” by
Martin Steingesser. I don’t know whether the errors to be found in the poem are
by Steingesser or Keillor, but at one point the poem says, “…this / is what I
wanted, to lie with you in the dark / listening how rain sounds….” One assumes
one of the two knew that there ought to be a “to” between “listening: and
“how”: “…listening [to] how rain sounds….”
Later on Steingesser
says, “and maybe / it will be still, as now, the longing / that carries us /
into each other's arms / asleep, neither speaking / least it all too
soon turn to morning….”
Good grief. The word
underlined should be lest, not
“least.” This “poem” is from an actually published book, from “Deerbrook
Edition, 2002.” Even that is a
typographical error because, according to their web page, the publisher is
“Deerbrook Editions," plural,
not singular.Apparently
nobody, not Steingesser, not the editors of Deerbrook, and not Garrison
Keillor, either, cares enough about the presentation of the English language to
catch these things before they are set up in print or put up for viewing on the Web.
Later on in the
posting, quoting sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, Keillor writes, “’Science fiction is no more written
for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.’” That is obviously Keillor’s typo. “The Writer’s
Almanac” continues to be our foremost purveyor of typographical and grammatical
errors on the Internet.
Here is a Wesli
Court epitaph for today, August 19, 2009, the birthday of Ogden Nash, one of the greatest epigrammatists of
all time, and the inventor of rhymed prose poems:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August
19, 1902 – May 19, 1971)
The poet
lives ‘twixt prose and verse
Than
which no fix can be much worse,
But then
along came Ogden Nash
Who
turned the whole thing into cash.
REMARKS
Loved it!
Thanks for sharing,
-S.
Ogden was a Nashional
treasure.
Rhina
Let me tell you, THAT
made me Nash my teeth. Nashurally, that's what you intended.
Lew
Hi, Lew,
I was just mentioning
Ogden Nash to someone a couple of days ago and lamenting the fact that he seems
mostly forgotten. I still enjoy his artful humor on occasion. I think your
"Epitaph" is a fitting tribute: it captures his "essence"
perfectly.
Best to Jean and you,
Jack
Dear 'Wesli,"
thanks for the Nashigram — can you offer a sample or two of his rhymed prose
poems?
Best to you,
Dan[iel]Ger[ard Hoff]man
Dear DanGerMan,
I don’t suppose that in
good conscience I can
provide you with an
honest-to-god sample of an
Ogden Nash poem made of
prose
Without violating copyright, but maybe I can give
you a little bit of an imitative example — who knows?
I can certainly give it a try,
but I’m a bit puzzled as to the reason you’d want
me to, and wondering why
you’d want an example of a Nasher anyway when
you’ve been reading his work all your life long
and all you need to do is Google his name to find
some silly song
he’s written or a paragraph or two of prose gone
wrong or maybe even correctly
in some weird way or other and not only alonely but
interconnectly.
Will this do? If so, see you,
Lew
P. S. In the course of this conversation I
discovered that I'd already written an epitaph for Ogden Nash:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August 19, 1902-May 19,
1971
A son of Rye but nephew
of the word,
He courted everything
that was absurd
And caught it sometimes
with élan, panache,
And often with the bite of Ogden Nash.
Maybe we could run a contest to see who likes which
one better.
My favorite
Nash-ism:
"Great Caesar's
ghost is on the shelf...and I don't feel so good myself!"
John Kares
Smith
Thanks!
I like the "son of
Rye" one best, I think. Though both are deft and a pleasure to read, the lines "nephew of
the word" and the absurd rhyme are satisfying.So there's my vote.
Best,
Ruth E. Harrison
And thank you, Ruth. Your
vote is the first.
Lew
Nice!
Pres.
Stephen L. Weber
SDSU
You have my vote for all
three. . .
Dan Hoffman
Lew,
Now...stop playing with
your words. You'll go blind.
George
I haven't gone blind
yet. What do you play with these days?
Lew
What do I play with
these daya? Whatever I can get my hands on. My guitar. The remote control. But
mostly an old wrinkly friend with one eye who needs help getting up.
Yours,
George
Pretty good, George. Glad
to see you’re still doing stand-up comedy.
Lew
Here is an epitaph for today, August 20, 2009:
R.I.P. EDGAR GUEST
August 20, 1881-August 5, 1959
He wrote, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a
home,”
And found it took a lot less work to make a rhyming tome,
So rather than become a sort of versifying pest,
He thought he’d move right in and stay an Edgar-present
Guest.
Lew,
Thanks for sharing and
always making my day more interesting.
I have a young friend
who just received a master's in chemistry but who only wants to write! I hope
you don't mind if I share your work with him. We are, of course, trying to
think of "jobs" where he could use his writing abilities inasmuch as
he just graduated and is now looking for a job. I feel so fortunate that I was
able to publish Poet magazine
for those years because that fed my
creativity. When the
angel of death comes to me and says, "What was the best time of your
life?" I will reply, "Poet magazine." hahaha
Hope all is well with
you,
Peggy Cooper
Peggy,
Why would I mind? Miller
Williams was a high school math teacher when he decided to be a full-time poet.
He taught at the University of Arkansas for decades and was the director of
their Press. I wrote one of his first job recommendations when I was a parvenu
teacher myself at Fenn College, which is now Cleveland State University.
I’m okay this week,
thanks.
Lew
Comments
Uncle Wesli's Daily Epitaph for today, Tuesday, August 4, 2009
“The
Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor” for Tuesday, August 4th,
2009, says these things on-line:
“The deans got a hold
of the pamphlet,” and, “the 19-year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with a
16-year-old girl, the daughter of a English pub owner.”
Herewith, an epitaph for Shelley by his admirer Wesli Court, (all epitaphs copyrighted 2009, all rights reserved):
R.I.P. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
August 4, 1792-July 8, 1822
He said to the skylark, “bird thou never wert,”
A line for which no poet would give his shirt,
Nor even a pair of socks that were worn and smelly.
Nevertheless, we honor Percy Shelley.
An epitaph for August 5th:
R.I.P. CONRAD AIKEN
August 5, 1889-August 17, 1973
He found his parents’ murder-suicide
When he was but a child. Although he tried
His hand at death himself he was not taken
Till age took pity on old Conrad
Aiken.
On Thursday, August 6th, in his piece on Tennyson’s birthday, Mr. Keillor wrote,
“They had traveled together through out Europe, and some scholars speculate that their relationship was more than platonic. Eventually, Hallam had become engaged to his Tennyson's sister.”
Keillor provides such fine examples of composition in the English language for the writers of America to emulate.
Here is an epitaph for Tennyson :
R.I.P. ALFRED TENNYSON
August 6,
1809-October 6, 1892
The purest poet of his
time,
He did nothing else but
rhyme,
So Fate bestowed the
benison
Of fame and wealth on
Tennyson.
On
Friday, August 7, 2009, in his “Writer’s Almanac” Garrison Keillor quoted
Leonard Nathan’s poem “Not to Trouble You” to this effect:
“Not to trouble you with
love, I mean / those adolescent dreams of great, of greater, / or of greatest
loving, let alone / the crumbly personal kind—“
One
wonders in what way the personal kind of love is “crumbly”? Is it the same sort
of thing as finding while putting on one’s shoes in the morning that “half a
loafer is better than none”? Or that down south things aren’t what they’re
crackered up to be? No, it’s probably more like working in a bleu cheese
factory and finding that it’s a crumbly job after all.
Keillor also
reported that, “On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor
of the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce.”
One
had no idea that an inanimate object like a novel could bring suit in a U. S.
Court of Appeals! Gosh, one can learn so many things by reading “The Writer’s Almanac”
on-line every morning.
On
Sunday, August the 8, 2009, Garrison Keillor’s once again taught’s us something
we didn’t know’s about English; he’s wrote,“Izaak Walton's wrote mostly biographies,” and I’s
wrote this in emulation of him’s wonderful way’s with word’s.
Keillor also reminded
us that today is Dryden's birthday and that “Nearly all of his writing he composed in heroic couplets,” so here’s
another epitaph by Wesli Court:
R.I.P. JOHN DRYDEN
August 9, 1631-13 May
1700
When once he learned to
write in pairs
Of lines he gave himself
no airs
And never after tried to
widen
The field of vision of
John Dryden.
And here's one for Jack Foley:
R.I.P.
JACK FOLEY
August
9, 1940
Here lies Jack Foley
Decomposing slowly.
When he composed faster
It was a disaster.
REPLY
Here lies the Turk
Who wrote with a smirk,
Decried by all men
When he wrote with a pen.
Jack Foley
But on a computer
None were acuter.
Happy 69 to you, though, Jack,
Wesli
From Neeli Cherkovski:
JACK FOLEY AT 69
holding one end of time
at the end of the day
holding one end of the
sun
here in the beginning
holding time, hovering
thinking, making a dream
remain so that the land
inside of it might be
revealed
as the passage widens
holding a dream inside
of time, telling the
moon
I love you everywhere
I am 69, the world is
nearly as old as I am
there in the beginning
of days as the light
of the sun and moon spar
against the distant
longing to be for
ever who I am
From Jake Berry:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
69 sure looks fine on
you
and I don't mean to
imply
any sexual act
Besides, using the
Clinton definition,
the 69 position
is not actually sex in
fact
What is it then?
It's pleasure, it's
poetry,
it's a tap dance or
foxtrot
depending on the music
you've got
And what could be more
amusing
than a life with the
muses
whether you abuse it or
not?
Take the extremes
the path of excess
wisdom rolls in like the
tide.
69 is joy f
or every girl and boy
willing to take the
ride.
And the ride has just
begun
there's so much left to
be done,
so many songs to write
and sing.
So pick up your lyre
and Dionysian fire
and mount the horse with
wings!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to one hell of a poet
My hat, and most of my
hair,
is off to you.
From Ivan Arguelles:
holy jumping bejeezus
if this monument hasn't
put on its quid of
years!
silently heaped up time
has joined its holy 69 t
o the one you left over
last but leaping higher
still one hand in
heaven
and t'other groping
for the Light!
From Mary-Marcia Casoly:
For Jack Foley 9669/MM
(Happy
Birthday) Selamat Ulang Tahu*
don’t be afraid of the
big barong
dance with the monkey
6 &9 ying/yang
realize how much you are
loved by so many
numerical acrobats 6
& 9 tumble
continue to bloom
protectors
wise child throughout
life
appear as twins standing
for each other
which is which, give
your reasons...
the brightest star
of Leo
morning and night 6
& 9 sun moon
a myriad of subtle ways
will tell
being 69 light years
from the earth...
starbeam of Leo
*Indonesian for
according to Google translator
From Katherine Hastings:
TWELVE LINES STOLEN ALMOST RANDOMLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT
for Jack on his
69th Birthday
Ecstatic heights in
thought and rhyme
The song of waiting and
the shock of time
You must look up at the
sky and act as if
The dream now beats more
quickly than blood
This is the secret lamp
burning under our gestures
In the air that consumes
and strengthens
Burning red, jumbled and
quivering
Each summer time to
life. Lo! This is he,
And there could I marvel
(his) birthday,
Pools and pasture shade
With bannerets and
censors, with wimples and magic veils
The Birth of a Nation*
*How Jack signed his email
tonight.
Jack's commentary:
Selamat Ulang Tahu
To me on my 6 plus 9
John Dryden should also
rate a wahoo
His birth date’s the
same as mine
As I scribble on scraps
which I write between naps
In this mighty disorder
called my den
’Twould be fine were I
known as only the clone
Of that wonderful poet
John Dryden
Now here’s an
epitaph for Monday, August 10th 2009, and a homage (yes, ahomage,
unless you’re Cockney) to the Spectrist poets:
Here is an epitaph for Tuesday, August 11th, 2009:
R.I.P. LOUISE BOGAN
August 11,
1897-February 4, 1970
Her mother flaunted each
affair
Which taught the young
Louise to fear
Uncertainty, and thus
began
The formal structures of
Bogan.
Here is an epitaph for Wedesday, August, 12, 2009:
BLUES
FOR DONALD JUSTICE
12
August 1925-6 August 2004
Well,
Don, I guess we knew you’d have to leave;
We
hoped not, but we saw you had to leave,
And
now we see it’s time for us to grieve.
We
knew you young, we knew you when we all
Were
young — you included, when we all
Were
wrapped in language, held in hypnotic thrall
By
sound and metre, couplet, quatrain, thrime,
By
rhythm in the line, caesura, rhyme,
And
it was you who showed us how to chime.
You
read our work with care, closely, with care.
You
read us with intelligence and care.
You
let your annoyance show, but you were fair
When
we were lax or earless, when we were mules.
Thank you for giving us the poet’s tools.
Copyright 2009 by Lewis Turco. All rights reserved.
Garrison
Keillor wrote of William Maxwell in “The Writer’s Almanac” for Sunday,
August 16, “His last book, a
collection of stories and fables called All the Days and Nights, he first started to work on, he said, ‘because my
wife like to have me tell her stories when we were in bed in the dark before
falling asleep.’ “
Me
like that she like that, like, what not to like?
Here
is a Wesli Court epitaph for today:
R.I.P.
ANDREW MARVELL
31
March 1621 – 16 August 1678)
He
had not world enough, nor time,
For
coyness, but enough for rime
To
spin its web and develop larval
Verse
forms to make Andrew Marvell.
Here is an epitaph for Monday,
August 17, 2009:
R.I.P. TED HUGHES
August 17, 1930 –
October 28, 1998
“He often put himself
into a trance before he writing,
and he tried to take
the point of view of animals.”
— Garrison Keillor.
“He often put himself into
a trance
Before he writing,” and
before he dance.
He always asking animals
for views,
And
now he make believe he dead Ted Hughes.
Today, Tuesday,
August 18, 2009, Garrison Keillor published a poem titled “This Longing” by
Martin Steingesser. I don’t know whether the errors to be found in the poem are
by Steingesser or Keillor, but at one point the poem says, “…this / is what I
wanted, to lie with you in the dark / listening how rain sounds….” One assumes
one of the two knew that there ought to be a “to” between “listening: and
“how”: “…listening [to] how rain sounds….”
Later on Steingesser
says, “and maybe / it will be still, as now, the longing / that carries us /
into each other's arms / asleep, neither speaking / least it all too
soon turn to morning….”
Good grief. The word
underlined should be lest, not
“least.” This “poem” is from an actually published book, from “Deerbrook
Edition, 2002.” Even that is a
typographical error because, according to their web page, the publisher is
“Deerbrook Editions," plural,
not singular.Apparently
nobody, not Steingesser, not the editors of Deerbrook, and not Garrison
Keillor, either, cares enough about the presentation of the English language to
catch these things before they are set up in print or put up for viewing on the Web.
Later on in the
posting, quoting sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, Keillor writes, “’Science fiction is no more written
for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.’” That is obviously Keillor’s typo. “The Writer’s
Almanac” continues to be our foremost purveyor of typographical and grammatical
errors on the Internet.
Here is a Wesli
Court epitaph for today, August 19, 2009, the birthday of Ogden Nash, one of the greatest epigrammatists of
all time, and the inventor of rhymed prose poems:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August
19, 1902 – May 19, 1971)
The poet
lives ‘twixt prose and verse
Than
which no fix can be much worse,
But then
along came Ogden Nash
Who
turned the whole thing into cash.
REMARKS
Loved it!
Thanks for sharing,
-S.
Ogden was a Nashional
treasure.
Rhina
Let me tell you, THAT
made me Nash my teeth. Nashurally, that's what you intended.
Lew
Hi, Lew,
I was just mentioning
Ogden Nash to someone a couple of days ago and lamenting the fact that he seems
mostly forgotten. I still enjoy his artful humor on occasion. I think your
"Epitaph" is a fitting tribute: it captures his "essence"
perfectly.
Best to Jean and you,
Jack
Dear 'Wesli,"
thanks for the Nashigram — can you offer a sample or two of his rhymed prose
poems?
Best to you,
Dan[iel]Ger[ard Hoff]man
Dear DanGerMan,
I don’t suppose that in
good conscience I can
provide you with an
honest-to-god sample of an
Ogden Nash poem made of
prose
Without violating copyright, but maybe I can give
you a little bit of an imitative example — who knows?
I can certainly give it a try,
but I’m a bit puzzled as to the reason you’d want
me to, and wondering why
you’d want an example of a Nasher anyway when
you’ve been reading his work all your life long
and all you need to do is Google his name to find
some silly song
he’s written or a paragraph or two of prose gone
wrong or maybe even correctly
in some weird way or other and not only alonely but
interconnectly.
Will this do? If so, see you,
Lew
P. S. In the course of this conversation I
discovered that I'd already written an epitaph for Ogden Nash:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August 19, 1902-May 19,
1971
A son of Rye but nephew
of the word,
He courted everything
that was absurd
And caught it sometimes
with élan, panache,
And often with the bite of Ogden Nash.
Maybe we could run a contest to see who likes which
one better.
My favorite
Nash-ism:
"Great Caesar's
ghost is on the shelf...and I don't feel so good myself!"
John Kares
Smith
Thanks!
I like the "son of
Rye" one best, I think. Though both are deft and a pleasure to read, the lines "nephew of
the word" and the absurd rhyme are satisfying.So there's my vote.
Best,
Ruth E. Harrison
And thank you, Ruth. Your
vote is the first.
Lew
Nice!
Pres.
Stephen L. Weber
SDSU
You have my vote for all
three. . .
Dan Hoffman
Lew,
Now...stop playing with
your words. You'll go blind.
George
I haven't gone blind
yet. What do you play with these days?
Lew
What do I play with
these daya? Whatever I can get my hands on. My guitar. The remote control. But
mostly an old wrinkly friend with one eye who needs help getting up.
Yours,
George
Pretty good, George. Glad
to see you’re still doing stand-up comedy.
Lew
Here is an epitaph for today, August 20, 2009:
R.I.P. EDGAR GUEST
August 20, 1881-August 5, 1959
He wrote, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a
home,”
And found it took a lot less work to make a rhyming tome,
So rather than become a sort of versifying pest,
He thought he’d move right in and stay an Edgar-present
Guest.
Lew,
Thanks for sharing and
always making my day more interesting.
I have a young friend
who just received a master's in chemistry but who only wants to write! I hope
you don't mind if I share your work with him. We are, of course, trying to
think of "jobs" where he could use his writing abilities inasmuch as
he just graduated and is now looking for a job. I feel so fortunate that I was
able to publish Poet magazine
for those years because that fed my
creativity. When the
angel of death comes to me and says, "What was the best time of your
life?" I will reply, "Poet magazine." hahaha
Hope all is well with
you,
Peggy Cooper
Peggy,
Why would I mind? Miller
Williams was a high school math teacher when he decided to be a full-time poet.
He taught at the University of Arkansas for decades and was the director of
their Press. I wrote one of his first job recommendations when I was a parvenu
teacher myself at Fenn College, which is now Cleveland State University.
I’m okay this week,
thanks.
Lew
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The Virginia Quarterly Review "The Mutable Past," a memoir collected in FANTASEERS, A BOOK OF MEMORIES by Lewis Turco of growing up in the 1950s in Meriden, Connecticut, (Scotsdale AZ: Star Cloud Press, 2005).
The Tower Journal Two short stories, "The Demon in the Tree" and "The Substitute Wife," in the spring 2009 issue of Tower Journal.
The Tower Journal A story, "The Car," and two poems, "Fathers" and "Year by Year"
The Tower Journal Memoir, “Pookah, The Greatest Cat in the History of the World,” Spring-Summer 2010.
The Michigan Quarterly Review This is the first terzanelle ever published, in "The Michigan Quarterly Review" in 1965. It has been gathered in THE COLLECTED LYRICS OF LEWIS TURCO/WESLI COURT, 1953-2004 (www.StarCloudPress.com).
The Gawain Poet An essay on the putative medieval author of "Gawain and the Green Knight" in the summer 2010 issue of Per Contra.
The Black Death Bryan Bridges' interesting article on the villanelle and the terzanelle with "The Black Death" by Wesli Court as an example of the latter.
Seniority: Six Shakespearian Tailgaters This is a part of a series called "Gnomes" others of which have appeared in TRINACRIA and on the blog POETICS AND RUMINATIONS.
Reinventing the Wheel, Modern Poems in Classical Meters An essay with illustrations of poems written in classical meters together with a "Table of Meters" and "The Rules of Scansion" in the Summer 2009 issue of Trellis Magazine
Uncle Wesli's Daily Epitaph for today, Tuesday, August 4, 2009
“The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor” for Tuesday, August 4th, 2009, says these things on-line:
“The deans got a hold of the pamphlet,” and, “the 19-year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with a 16-year-old girl, the daughter of a English pub owner.”
Herewith, an epitaph for Shelley by his admirer Wesli Court, (all epitaphs copyrighted 2009, all rights reserved):
R.I.P. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
August 4, 1792-July 8, 1822
He said to the skylark, “bird thou never wert,”
A line for which no poet would give his shirt,
Nor even a pair of socks that were worn and smelly.
Nevertheless, we honor Percy Shelley.
An epitaph for August 5th:
R.I.P. CONRAD AIKEN
August 5, 1889-August 17, 1973
He found his parents’ murder-suicide
When he was but a child. Although he tried
His hand at death himself he was not taken
Till age took pity on old Conrad Aiken.
On Thursday, August 6th, in his piece on Tennyson’s birthday, Mr. Keillor wrote,
“They had traveled together through out Europe, and some scholars speculate that their relationship was more than platonic. Eventually, Hallam had become engaged to his Tennyson's sister.”
Keillor provides such fine examples of composition in the English language for the writers of America to emulate.
Here is an epitaph for Tennyson :
R.I.P. ALFRED TENNYSON
August 6, 1809-October 6, 1892
The purest poet of his time,
He did nothing else but rhyme,
So Fate bestowed the benison
Of fame and wealth on Tennyson.
On Friday, August 7, 2009, in his “Writer’s Almanac” Garrison Keillor quoted Leonard Nathan’s poem “Not to Trouble You” to this effect:
“Not to trouble you with love, I mean / those adolescent dreams of great, of greater, / or of greatest loving, let alone / the crumbly personal kind—“
One wonders in what way the personal kind of love is “crumbly”? Is it the same sort of thing as finding while putting on one’s shoes in the morning that “half a loafer is better than none”? Or that down south things aren’t what they’re crackered up to be? No, it’s probably more like working in a bleu cheese factory and finding that it’s a crumbly job after all.
Keillor also reported that, “On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce.”
One had no idea that an inanimate object like a novel could bring suit in a U. S. Court of Appeals! Gosh, one can learn so many things by reading “The Writer’s Almanac” on-line every morning.
On Sunday, August the 8, 2009, Garrison Keillor’s once again taught’s us something we didn’t know’s about English; he’s wrote, “Izaak Walton's wrote mostly biographies,” and I’s wrote this in emulation of him’s wonderful way’s with word’s.
Keillor also reminded us that today is Dryden's birthday and that “Nearly all of his writing he composed in heroic couplets,” so here’s another epitaph by Wesli Court:
R.I.P. JOHN DRYDEN
August 9, 1631-13 May 1700
When once he learned to write in pairs
Of lines he gave himself no airs
And never after tried to widen
The field of vision of John Dryden.
And here's one for Jack Foley:
R.I.P. JACK FOLEY
August 9, 1940
Here lies Jack Foley
Decomposing slowly.
When he composed faster
It was a disaster.
REPLY
Here lies the Turk
Who wrote with a smirk,
Decried by all men
When he wrote with a pen.
Jack Foley
But on a computer
None were acuter.
Happy 69 to you, though, Jack,
Wesli
From Neeli Cherkovski:
JACK FOLEY AT 69
holding one end of time
at the end of the day
holding one end of the sun
here in the beginning
holding time, hovering
thinking, making a dream
remain so that the land
inside of it might be revealed
as the passage widens
holding a dream inside
of time, telling the moon
I love you everywhere
I am 69, the world is
nearly as old as I am
there in the beginning
of days as the light
of the sun and moon spar
against the distant
longing to be for
ever who I am
From Jake Berry:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
69 sure looks fine on you
and I don't mean to imply
any sexual act
Besides, using the Clinton definition,
the 69 position
is not actually sex in fact
What is it then?
It's pleasure, it's poetry,
it's a tap dance or foxtrot
depending on the music you've got
And what could be more amusing
than a life with the muses
whether you abuse it or not?
Take the extremes
the path of excess
wisdom rolls in like the tide.
69 is joy f
or every girl and boy
willing to take the ride.
And the ride has just begun
there's so much left to be done,
so many songs to write and sing.
So pick up your lyre
and Dionysian fire
and mount the horse with wings!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to one hell of a poet
My hat, and most of my hair,
is off to you.
From Ivan Arguelles:
holy jumping bejeezus
if this monument hasn't
put on its quid of years!
silently heaped up time
has joined its holy 69 t
o the one you left over
last but leaping higher
still one hand in heaven
and t'other groping
for the Light!
From Mary-Marcia Casoly:
For Jack Foley 9669/MM
(Happy Birthday) Selamat Ulang Tahu*
don’t be afraid of the big barong
dance with the monkey
6 &9 ying/yang
realize how much you are loved by so many
numerical acrobats 6 & 9 tumble
continue to bloom protectors
wise child throughout life
appear as twins standing for each other
which is which, give your reasons...
the brightest star of Leo
morning and night 6 & 9 sun moon
a myriad of subtle ways will tell
being 69 light years from the earth...
starbeam of Leo
*Indonesian for according to Google translator
From Katherine Hastings:
TWELVE LINES STOLEN ALMOST RANDOMLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT
for Jack on his 69th Birthday
Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme
The song of waiting and the shock of time
You must look up at the sky and act as if
The dream now beats more quickly than blood
This is the secret lamp burning under our gestures
In the air that consumes and strengthens
Burning red, jumbled and quivering
Each summer time to life. Lo! This is he,
And there could I marvel (his) birthday,
Pools and pasture shade
With bannerets and censors, with wimples and magic veils
The Birth of a Nation*
*How Jack signed his email tonight.
Jack's commentary:
Selamat Ulang Tahu
To me on my 6 plus 9
John Dryden should also rate a wahoo
His birth date’s the same as mine
As I scribble on scraps which I write between naps
In this mighty disorder called my den
’Twould be fine were I known as only the clone
Of that wonderful poet John Dryden
Now here’s an epitaph for Monday, August 10th 2009, and a homage (yes, a homage, unless you’re Cockney) to the Spectrist poets:
R.I.P. WITTER BYNNER
August 10, 1881-June 1, 1968
He helped to pull the Spectrist Hoax
With friends — their literary jokes
Were served like Knishes in a diner
By Arthur Ficke and Witter Bynner.
A SPECTRAL LAMENT
With Spectrist apologies to Emanuel Morgan.
I wish that I were crazy,
I wish that I were mad —
Alas! I am but, Maizie,
A normal, noxious lad.
I would that I were otherwise
So I might make your tender eyes
Light up like thunder in the skies!
If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs.
I'd take an artist's palette
And paint you, if I could,
The colors of a salad
All green and red and good.
I'd turn those cheeks so pale and saddish
The blushred of a summer radish;
I'd stop for aye my aubade-kaddish
If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs.
I love the way you simper
When you've had one or two:
It makes me want to whimper
And drink a toast of dew
Or coat you overall with varnish
To keep away Time's bitter tarnish —
Lord knows I don't want you to vanish!
If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs.
I'm just a small town slacker;
I'm not much, that I know.
Some greasy city slicker
No doubt will be your beau,
But I would run a country mile,
My Maizie dear, to see you smile
As you come slewing down the aisle
Grinning at me all the while,
Your yellow teeth all neat in file,
Your boring eyes as bright as oil;
If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs.
Here is an epitaph for Tuesday, August 11th, 2009:
R.I.P. LOUISE BOGAN
August 11, 1897-February 4, 1970
Her mother flaunted each affair
Which taught the young Louise to fear
Uncertainty, and thus began
The formal structures of Bogan.
Here is an epitaph for Wedesday, August, 12, 2009:
BLUES FOR DONALD JUSTICE
12 August 1925-6 August 2004
Well, Don, I guess we knew you’d have to leave;
We hoped not, but we saw you had to leave,
And now we see it’s time for us to grieve.
We knew you young, we knew you when we all
Were young — you included, when we all
Were wrapped in language, held in hypnotic thrall
By sound and metre, couplet, quatrain, thrime,
By rhythm in the line, caesura, rhyme,
And it was you who showed us how to chime.
You read our work with care, closely, with care.
You read us with intelligence and care.
You let your annoyance show, but you were fair
When we were lax or earless, when we were mules.
Thank you for giving us the poet’s tools.Copyright 2009 by Lewis Turco. All rights reserved.
Garrison Keillor wrote of William Maxwell in “The Writer’s Almanac” for Sunday, August 16, “His last book, a collection of stories and fables called All the Days and Nights, he first started to work on, he said, ‘because my wife like to have me tell her stories when we were in bed in the dark before falling asleep.’ “
Me like that she like that, like, what not to like?
Here is a Wesli Court epitaph for today:
R.I.P. ANDREW MARVELL
31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678)
He had not world enough, nor time,
For coyness, but enough for rime
To spin its web and develop larval
Verse forms to make Andrew Marvell.
Here is an epitaph for Monday, August 17, 2009:
R.I.P. TED HUGHES
August 17, 1930 – October 28, 1998
“He often put himself into a trance before he writing,
and he tried to take the point of view of animals.”
— Garrison Keillor.
“He often put himself into a trance
Before he writing,” and before he dance.
He always asking animals for views,
And now he make believe he dead Ted Hughes.
Today, Tuesday, August 18, 2009, Garrison Keillor published a poem titled “This Longing” by Martin Steingesser. I don’t know whether the errors to be found in the poem are by Steingesser or Keillor, but at one point the poem says, “…this / is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark / listening how rain sounds….” One assumes one of the two knew that there ought to be a “to” between “listening: and “how”: “…listening [to] how rain sounds….”
Later on Steingesser says, “and maybe / it will be still, as now, the longing / that carries us / into each other's arms / asleep, neither speaking / least it all too soon turn to morning….”
Good grief. The word underlined should be lest, not “least.” This “poem” is from an actually published book, from “Deerbrook Edition, 2002.” Even that is a typographical error because, according to their web page, the publisher is “Deerbrook Editions," plural, not singular. Apparently nobody, not Steingesser, not the editors of Deerbrook, and not Garrison Keillor, either, cares enough about the presentation of the English language to catch these things before they are set up in print or put up for viewing on the Web.
Later on in the posting, quoting sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, Keillor writes, “’Science fiction is no more written for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.’” That is obviously Keillor’s typo. “The Writer’s Almanac” continues to be our foremost purveyor of typographical and grammatical errors on the Internet.
Here is a Wesli Court epitaph for today, August 19, 2009, the birthday of Ogden Nash, one of the greatest epigrammatists of all time, and the inventor of rhymed prose poems:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971)
The poet lives ‘twixt prose and verse
Than which no fix can be much worse,
But then along came Ogden Nash
Who turned the whole thing into cash.
REMARKS
Loved it!
Thanks for sharing,
-S.
Ogden was a Nashional treasure.
Rhina
Let me tell you, THAT made me Nash my teeth. Nashurally, that's what you intended.
Lew
Hi, Lew,
I was just mentioning Ogden Nash to someone a couple of days ago and lamenting the fact that he seems mostly forgotten. I still enjoy his artful humor on occasion. I think your "Epitaph" is a fitting tribute: it captures his "essence" perfectly.
Best to Jean and you,
Jack
Dear 'Wesli," thanks for the Nashigram — can you offer a sample or two of his rhymed prose poems?
Best to you,
Dan[iel]Ger[ard Hoff]man
Dear DanGerMan,
I don’t suppose that in good conscience I can
provide you with an honest-to-god sample of an
Ogden Nash poem made of prose
Without violating copyright, but maybe I can give you a little bit of an imitative example — who knows?
I can certainly give it a try,
but I’m a bit puzzled as to the reason you’d want me to, and wondering why
you’d want an example of a Nasher anyway when you’ve been reading his work all your life long
and all you need to do is Google his name to find some silly song
he’s written or a paragraph or two of prose gone wrong or maybe even correctly
in some weird way or other and not only alonely but interconnectly.
Will this do? If so, see you,
Lew
P. S. In the course of this conversation I discovered that I'd already written an epitaph for Ogden Nash:
R.I.P. OGDEN NASH
August 19, 1902-May 19, 1971
A son of Rye but nephew of the word,
He courted everything that was absurd
And caught it sometimes with élan, panache,
And often with the bite of Ogden Nash.
Maybe we could run a contest to see who likes which one better.
My favorite Nash-ism:
"Great Caesar's ghost is on the shelf...and I don't feel so good myself!"
John Kares Smith
Thanks!
I like the "son of Rye" one best, I think. Though both are deft and a pleasure to read, the lines "nephew of the word" and the absurd rhyme are satisfying. So there's my vote.
Best,
Ruth E. Harrison
And thank you, Ruth. Your vote is the first.
Lew
Nice!
Pres. Stephen L. Weber
SDSU
You have my vote for all three. . .
Dan Hoffman
Lew,
Now...stop playing with your words. You'll go blind.
George
I haven't gone blind yet. What do you play with these days?
Lew
What do I play with these daya? Whatever I can get my hands on. My guitar. The remote control. But mostly an old wrinkly friend with one eye who needs help getting up.
Yours,
George
Pretty good, George. Glad to see you’re still doing stand-up comedy.
Lew
Here is an epitaph for today, August 20, 2009:
R.I.P. EDGAR GUEST
August 20, 1881-August 5, 1959
He wrote, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a home,”
And found it took a lot less work to make a rhyming tome,
So rather than become a sort of versifying pest,
He thought he’d move right in and stay an Edgar-present Guest.
Lew,
Thanks for sharing and always making my day more interesting.
I have a young friend who just received a master's in chemistry but who only wants to write! I hope you don't mind if I share your work with him. We are, of course, trying to think of "jobs" where he could use his writing abilities inasmuch as he just graduated and is now looking for a job. I feel so fortunate that I was able to publish Poet magazine for those years because that fed my
creativity. When the angel of death comes to me and says, "What was the best time of your life?" I will reply, "Poet magazine." hahaha
Hope all is well with you,
Peggy Cooper
Peggy,
Why would I mind? Miller Williams was a high school math teacher when he decided to be a full-time poet. He taught at the University of Arkansas for decades and was the director of their Press. I wrote one of his first job recommendations when I was a parvenu teacher myself at Fenn College, which is now Cleveland State University.
I’m okay this week, thanks.
Lew
August 04, 2009 in Commentary, Epitaphs, Humor & Satire, Literature, Poetry | Permalink
Tags: Keillor ty