Fifty (50) years ago, on 19 April 1968, I wrote in my journal, "The Book of Forms has arrived! It has the most incredible art nouveau cover." The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, first edition, by Lewis Turco, New York, NY: E. P. Dutton, 1968. Paperback original.
The New Book of Forms, A Handbook of Poetics (second edition of The Book of Forms), Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986 (www.UPNE.com), ISBN 0874513804, cloth; 0874513812, paper.
The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Third Edition, Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000. ISBN 1584650419, cloth; ISBN 1584650222, paper. A companion volume to The Book of Dialogue and The Book of Literary Terms. “The Poet’s Bible."
My friend and former colleague Bill Whipple wrote,
Hello, Lew,
I've been wastimg my time wondering about this, and I thought I'd see whether I can waste some of your time as well.
Has anybody developed a scheme for classifying the various types of nonsense verse? There seem to be several distinct genres. There are classics like “Jabberwocky,” or this gem by Ogden Nash:
GEDDONDILLO
The sharrot scudders nights in the quastron now,
The dorlim slinks undeceded in the grost,
Appetency lights the corb of the guzzard now,
The ancient beveldric is otley lost.
Treduty flees like a darbit along the drace now,
Collody lollops belutedly over the slawn.
The bloodbound bitterlitch bays the ostrous moon now,
For yesterday's bayable majicity is flunky gone.
Make way, make way, the preluge is scarly nonce now,
Make way, I say, the gronderous Demiburge comes,
His blidless veins shall ye joicily rejugulate now,
And gollify him from 'twixt his protecherous gums.
[I think I wrote one of those, Bill, when I was in high school:
THE DEATH OF THE OLD WAMBLE DOG
And glying came the wamble dog
Through yellow floods of dimble trees.
Along the way he flaffled at
Grand hordes of ifferary fleas.
“Aha!” cried he, gapflumpf with glee,
“Bewordling there, who can that be
Standing beside the rordle sea
And waiting lorily for me?”
His flaffle tail stood tall and straight
As he approached, with breath abate,
The black cloaked figure on the shore:
‘Twas Mother Goose and nothing more
Delarling in a tarn of gore
With story books and rhymes galore
And tales you’ve never heard before,
Bound up within a silken noose.
So up he glyed with panting breath
(For he was old, and Mother Goose
Is know to grownups, too, as Death).
The wamble dog will gly no more,
For now he frondles Stygian lore,
And life’s short game, for him, is o’er
Since death has evened up the score.]
These examples use made-up words [neologisms], placed within normal syntactic structures, using enough common words (articles, conjunctions, etc.) to make the text sound meaningful -- except for the artificial words. [Neologistic verse?
Then there is another type of nonsense verse, in which all the words are genuine and the syntax is correct, but where the choice of words makes no semantic sense [inappropriate modification and imaginary description?]. An example comes from our old friend, Walt Kelly:
I've always thought, in the crispness of Noon,
The best of the week is Christmas in June.
Then if ever's the Ismuth too soon
As we sprinkle and wrinkle the Bismuth in tune.
[Would this poem of mine fit into your second category, Bill” –
TWUNKLE, TWUNKLE
Twunkle, twunkle, small carbuncle,
How I wonder who’s your uncle
Down beneath the dirt so low
Where the worms and beetles grow.]
Allowing that "Ismuth" probably means "isthmus," there are no artificial words here -- but the lack of semantic meaning makes it nonsense.
Then there is a third type, in which both the words and the semantics are normal, but where a total absurdity of the situation makes the poem nonsense. An example is this one by Christopher Isherwood:
THE COMMON CORMORANT OR SHAG
The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
[This sounds like more “imaginary description, Bill, butI think I’ve written one of them]:
A MOLE LIVED ON A MOUNTAIN
A mole lived on a mountain.
His banjo, it was blue.
He sang of a crystal fountain
That welled from beneath a yew.
And it was in the fall of the year
That his banjo, it was blue.
As the old mole sang, he shed a tear
For Lily of the Valley.
And it was in the fall of the year
That he sang, "O waly, walley,
My love, she lives in a far, far land,
My Lily of the Valley."
He sailed for a desert island
With his banjo all of blue.
He sang, "My love's in a far, far land —
"Alas! that she never knew
A mole lived on a mountain
Whose love for her was true,
Who sang of her crystal fountain.]
All of these types share one feature: correct syntax. I suppose that without syntax, we'd have just collections of words that don't make any sense together, and that wouldn't be seen as verse. But it's possible to skirt the edges of even this requirement, by using slight fragments of syntax (along with meter and rhyme) to hold together normal words that lack semantic coherence. Here's Kelly again:
Hear ye! Hear ye!
Hear ye now!
Cup ye now an eye
Weary, dearie
Kyrie cow?
Moo and six is pie
[Does this work with the rules you’ve set down for the fourth category, Bill? –
SNORDS
When one snords or burdlestans
Past the grim fleeglockles,
He must wordle Everyman's
Whibble 'mongst the cockles.]
Well, it seems to be that there ought to me some taxonomy here. Somebody must have plowed this field, or at least surveyed it -- but I haven't found anyone who has done so.
Do you have any thoughts about all of this -- other than that it's a damfool way to spend a Memorial Day weekend?
cheers,
Bill Whipple
Let me know if my examples fit your categories, Bill, then maybe we can figure out the taxonomy.
Lew Turco
Lew,
I think your examples fit the categories in which you've placed them, except for "Snords." That would seem to me to
fall in the first category -- its effect comes from artificial words placed in syntactically-correct proto-sentences. Certainly your Wamble Dog poem is an excellent example of that genre. Lewis Carroll's "Hunting of the Snark" would also be in this category. It would also encompass Douglas Adams' Vogon Poetry.
I think "Twunkle Twunkle" approximately fits the second category. To be sure, "twunkle" is not an English word, but then "Ismuth" in my example isn't one either. (I imagined it to be a variant of isthmus -- or possibly of azimuth -- but the word as Kelly actually used it is artificial.) Perhaps the second category ought to be defined as verses composed **almost entirely** of genuine words, to allow occasional exceptions. These seem to me quite different from the verses in the first category, where the humor stems primarily from the use of nonsensical words in grammatically-correct structures. Here is another example of the second category, from the Beatles album "Abbey Road;"
Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park
Shaves in the dark, trying to save paper.
Sleeps in a hole in the road,
Saving up to buy some clothes,
Keeps a ten-bob note up his nose,
Such a mean old man.
Or, from the same source,
Didn't anybody tell her?
Didn't anybody see?
Sunday's on the phone to Monday,
Tuesday's on the phone to me.
Your "A Mole Lived on a Mountain" fits the third caregory very well. All the words are real, all the sentences make sense -- except that the situation described is absurd. Much of the work of Lear would fit in this category -- such as "The Jumblies":
Far and few, far and few,
And the lands where the Jumblies live.
Their heads are green and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.
As for the fourth class, I'm not sure whether it can be defended as a distinct category at all. I can't think of any examples other than by Kelly, but he was proficient in a style that skated on very thin syntactical ice, using localized bits of semantic context, to bind together verses. Here's another example:
Can we eggplant?
Can we corn?
Can we succotash?
String we strongbeans
for the morn,
Masterful mustache?
Perhaps, though, unless an example by another poet turns up, this should just be considered one of Kelly's idiosyncratic styles (like the "Anguish Langwich") and not treated as a genre of nonsense verse. I don't know... what do you think?
Bill
Bill,
What Walt Kelly does in the first three lines of the example you use for your fourth class of nonsense verse is called “anthimeria,” which, as I say in my The Book of Literary Terms on pages 119-129,* “substitutes one part of speech for another; for instance, a noun for a verb as in ‘The clock's chime belfries above the city.’" Overall, Kelly is using “annomination…wordplay, as in the pun, the quibble, or calembour. A synonym is paronomasia,” also to be found on page 119 of my book. There are many other terms for what he does; for instance, “strongbeans” is a “coinage” or “neologism” which he produces by substituting one vowel, an “o,” for the “i” in “stringbeans” (assonance, a type of chime, “similar sound” rather than “rhyme”). All of these ploys are standard in nonsense (or any other kind of) verse. So I don’t think your fourth category exists as a separate type of silliness, a point you yourself make, with which I agree.
However, you might be able to make a case for the other three. Now all you have to do is come of with names for them. I’ve suggested “neologistic verse” for the first, “verse of inappropriate modification” for the second, maybe, if it’s to be distinguished from the third, and perhaps “imaginary description” for the third, though the last two terms are clunky.
Lew
Lew,
The best names I've been able to come up with for the three types are (1) lexical nonsense, (2) semantic nonsense, and (3) contextual nonsense. I'm not enamored of these terms, but they're descriptive -- the first has to do with absurd words, the second with absurd meanings, and the third with absurd context. I think you're right -- the line between the second and third types is a fuzzy one. But they do seem distinguishable to me. We're both content to deep-six the fourth, so that takes care of that one.
Spoonerism A Spoonerism transposes the initial sounds of two words in a clause, as in one of the most famous slips of the tongue of the Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), “Young man, you’ve tasted the whole worm!” (instead of, “You’ve wasted the whole term!).*
NO CLASS AT ALL! NO LASS AT CALL!
Built with Spooner’s Own Isms.
Young man, you missed my history lecture.
Further, you’ve hissed my mystery lecture!
You’ve tasted the entire worm,
Just wasted the entire term!
Don’t tell me you were lighting a fire –
I hate having to fight a liar!
It’s like seeing a blushing crow
Or receiving a crushing blow!
It’s like insulting our dear old Queen
Or running into our queer old Dean!
I wonder if the bean is dizzy?
I’ll bet you hope the Dean is busy --
No doubt with you it’s a half-formed wish!
Now go and eat a half-wormed fish!
Go home! Leave our cozy nook
Go fry your fish, you nosy cook.
By Lewis Turco
Assignment: Write a poem in Spooner rhyme. If necessary, make up your own Spoonerisms.
Jennifer Reeser sent Jack Foley this poem—and challenge:
HOW ABOUT?
How about you write a happy poem today,
with harps and harpsichords that play in major A,
remembering those hopeful things you used to say?
What if you imagined you were touring France --
the streets of Paris, say, where every passing glance
would seem to offer you a swift and sweet romance?
It needn't be about a great thing. Something humble
would work: a wildflower's wilted, yellow umbel
attracting ladybugs, or weighty bees to bumble;
safe in your favorite place, a fine, French Quarter door.
For once forego oppression, poverty, and war.
You do not have to save the planet anymore.
Your very first attempt at making rhyming verse --
remember it? No subject matter ever worse
than rainbows praised, then folded in a plastic purse.
And yet, your teacher told you it had wit and charm,
that it was new to school -- like you -- and southern, warm,
and if it didn't heal, at least it did no harm.
So no more "beaten puppy" poems. Are we agreed?
We all have veins, which, cut with our own hands, will bleed.
Of suffering, The World Review has no more need.
-- Jennifer Reeser
Jack Foley replied,
HOW ABOUT YOU?
How about you write a happy poem?
No more of scandals like The Teapot Dome
A happy poem to thrill you and hit home.
You aren't an insect like the praying mantis
Get down and dirty, unlike your old aunties.
Think colored underwear and sexy panties.
The world is going quickly down the drain
And everywhere you look you notice pain
We don't have to hear that song again.
Death's the lord that rules this whirling earth
But though there's death, there's also daily birth
And where there's birth, there's also joy and mirth.
Turn off the side that thrills to homicide
Be happy that you have another side
That lovely woman makes a lovely bride
And you have many times discovered blisses
In your lover's captivating kisses
(Please don't remind me of the pain a bris is).
A happy poem looks deeply in the eyes
Of someone you see always with surprise
But wouldn't ever harm or compromise.
A happy poem does not deny the dearth
Of happiness but answers it with mirth.
A happy poem returns us to the earth.
-- Jack Foley
Jack sent me this correspondence, including the Sandburg “Snatch” just below. I assume he meant to challenge me, too, so I wrote my “Happy Pome” and sent it to Jack and Jennifer:
Are you happy? It’s the only way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy. It’s a good nice way to be.
But not happy-happy kid, don’t
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It’s the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people…bust hard…they
do bust hard…when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too doggone happy.
—Carl Sandburg, “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz”
HAPPY POME
Are you happy? It’s the only way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy. It’s a good nice way to be.
But not happy-happy kid, don’t
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It’s the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people…bust hard…they
do bust hard…when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too doggone happy.
—Carl Sandburg, “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz”
I am happy happy happy --
Yes, I know I'm kinda sappy,
But I'm happy as the friggin' day is long,
So I've put on my toupee
To write a happy pome today --
If you've music you can sing it as a song.
Though the world is sort of crappy,
And I haven't had my nappy
(Not a didy but a sleep that's nice and long),
I'll put on a smile that's silly
And I'll wear it willy-nilly
Like a jockstrap that is very like a thong.
I will eat my tapi-tapi-
Oca pudding till I'm whacky,
Then I'll sit and count my fingers and my toes
Till my cat goes lappy-lappy
At her milk like it's a frappe
And I get a drink of water from my hose.
Oh, I wish I had my pappy
Back although he gets quite snappy
When he's wakened from his slumber in the ground.
But I'd say to him, "Dear Daddy,
I exist up here quite sadly.
I'd be happy if you'd rise and hang around."
-- Lewis Turco
And Jack replied again with other poems by himself and other people:
DONE
Oh, he wishes for his pappy
Though his pappy can be snappy
(After all he’s dead and buried in the ground)
So the Turk puts on his gnome
Hat, produces quite a poeme
(But--his pappy’s turning, whirling all around!)
-- Jack Foley
A HAPPY POEM
Happiness is an epiphenomenon,
A by-product of something else,
Like yesterday, when I did errands for a friend
And realized her day would be better:
Then I felt happy. But I didn't do it to feel happy
Or to make her happy, as if cause and effect
Were the only thing in the human world...
We do so much that is indirect, find ourselves
When we don't know we are lost; return
A favour when someone does not expect it, recall,
Incidentally, the walk across the bridge,
Meant only to get to Cambridge, the rest
Of our lives, become a father again.
Happiness has its own course. We find it
Along the way.
-- Peter Sherburn-Zimmer
A DULCET AIR
A lark, a sprite, a glass of wine and thou
In a pastoral setting, picnicking wow
This is life with a capital L, and how!
I might think of France, Corsica or the Ardennes
But in a dell or on a delta - life is made of friends
Joined to enjoy overflowing cups making temporal amends
To me a dandelion's seeds blown into the blue on high
A silhouette of cypress against a blazing sunset sky
Or the unseen flight a single bird calling on the fly
Such are simple joys which often get passed by
Without a thought, taking note or ever wondering why
Even while, for many, happiness is as remote, even sly
We don’t have to focus on sufferance and pain
We don’t have to join the dirge of those who complain
We don’t have to compete to see whose most insane
This world is a world, much as any, that can be found
It is glorious, verdant, blue, green white and round
It’s moon is a wonder giving us mysteries that abound
And so it is to happiness that our verse should be turned
It is happiness through which our souls become learned
And to happiness that we would dedicate all we’ve earned
A dusky meadow, upland in some seaboard state
Where fireflies and children, with joy, have a date
And watermelon waits, with a cake on a plate
And happy, happy eyes look on and reminisce
And happy, happy smiles whisper for a kiss
As musicians warm up for folk-dancy bliss
-- Dan Brady
A HAPPY POEM
A happy poem is the relief
of turning away from ominous grief
looking at a luscious tree
sharing fruit and shade with me
-- Nina Serrano
THESE WORDS
These words are short these words are long.
What does it matter if they’re wrong?
Let’s squeeze them all into a song.
Sing praises to the tardigrade,
(Its jolly rounded shape, well made!)
and feed the world some marmalade.
We fret too much or fret too little
soon our mouths are full of spittle.
Oooo our psyche is so brittle.
The young dies young the old dies old.
It’s not a pretty scene, all told.
Living has never been so bold.
Misfits, servants, addicts, lovers,
strive and nest without the buffers.
So fly and wade the humble plovers.
If Christ and Buddah return today
neither of them has much to say
except the teas in Cafe Bouquet.
Take a cup and drown the sorrow.
No scam is like that of tomorrow.
We all return the stuff we borrow.
Sing hey hey hey, sing hee hee ha.
Sing hum-di-dump, and ooo-la-la
and a wump and a tooth and a tree, wa wa.
-- Clara Hsu
evening
the older folks
who live here
gather on the porch
just before the sun goes down
before the birds
go sleeping
into the branches
before the sun
moves gently
out of the leaves
and they turn
from brilliant green
to indistinguishable
shades of blue
before the bear comes out
with her cub
before the deer
go home
with their
fawns
how wonderful
to hear them
the older folks
where i live
talking
and laughing
still
-- Deborah Wenzel
A HAPPY POEM – WHAT A CONCEPT
A happy poem - What a concept! -
requires faith from the onset,
and more courage than a lovely sonnet
It could never be arranged by any contract
but might be found in alien contact
if it led to a joyous sex act
Imagine soaring at light speed
while every molecule decreed
interstellar bliss achieved!
But only planted firmly on the earth,
the home planet in homegrown dirt,
can we discover that golden mirth
that so overjoys us in our skin
that we slip loose of it time and again
and dissolve into an autumn wind
whose face is intimate, but unseen
a welcome sigh out of a dream
that we once lived and loved and leaned
into a bloodstream almost divine
beyond the concepts - time and mind,
beyond the light and awestruck blind
we see again through scaleless eyes
the joyous world and glowing skies
beauty herself undisguised
-- Jake Berry
THIS IS A HAPPY POEM
And why not make room for some porter ale in Pollyanna tones
which will quash your global ostrich blues. Take all your finer tokens
for granted. Pipe down on skunk-fume, spread your dijon
Instead. Remember even drips can inspire love by telephone.
Dog-eared flowers & tin pan songs aren’t so easily forsaken.
O the tender scent comes fresh apricots, lightly shaken.
And here’s the rub. The best ice cream flavor ever chosen
sticks to the page, drips downside eyes & honey cones—
quadruple scoops are proof of purchase alone.
Skip who’s-up-the-creek, such inklings thrown
trip you for a loop at best. One single couplet coupon
favors lucky charms. Touch his/her cubit as shown.
Joyous sea waves crash air holes together eloping
foam. A love note tucked between some old leather tome
is about as absurd as finding blackbirds or a polished stone.
A bluebird sings up sudden without thought and roams
all, not only one third of sky. A clutch of words can crack ribs open
from a hidden nest deep inside your chest. Rest.
Find yourself a happy poem.
-- Mary-Marcia Casoly
ANOTHER HAPPY POEM
Light as a feather
Clouds in a rosy sunrise
Holiday weekend!
-- Adelle Foley
Perhaps everyone should accept Jennifer’s challenge and write a happy poem today!
Jack, Please tell your lucky, talented wife, Adelle, that she has made my day, and that the crested California Foleys have gone to the top of the Swamp Reesers' Christmas card list this year. It seems that Lew, you and I have set fire beneath a few heels ;-)
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
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