There Was a Little Girl -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(Poem #835) There Was a Little Girl There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Having known and loved and quoted and parodied this little verselet for most
of my life, it came as quite a surprise to see that it was written not by
that most prolific duo, Anon. and Trad., but by the decidedly nonymous
Longfellow.

At least I'm not alone in making the mistake - from the UToronto site:

  Longfellow's second son Ernest says of this poem: "It was while walking up
  and down with his second daughter, then a baby in his arms, that my father
  composed and sang to her the well-known lines .... Many people think this
  a Mother-Goose rhyme, but this is the true version and history"

        -- http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/longfe34.html

Note, too that the penultimate line is more commonly misquoted "She was
very, very good".

Biography:

[broken link] http://ikarus.pclab-phil.uni-kiel.de/daten/anglist/PoetryProject/longfellow.htm

Links:

All the Longfellow poems on Minstrels:

  Poem #172 'Paul Revere's Ride'
  Poem #362 'Hiawatha's Departure'
  Poem #629 'The Slave's Dream'
  Poem #717 'The Wreck of the Hesperus'

Plus a couple of Longfellow parodies:
  Poem #559 George A. Strong, 'The Modern Hiawatha'
  Poem #561 Anon., 'The Metre Columbian'

-martin

Soup -- Carl Sandburg

(Poem #834) Soup I saw a famous man eating soup. I say he was lifting a fat broth Into his mouth with a spoon. His name was in the newspapers that day Spelled out in tall black headlines And thousands of people were talking about him. When I saw him, He sat bending his head over a plate Putting soup in his mouth with a spoon. -- Carl Sandburg

A nice little vignette that makes a simple point, but makes it well: even
the rich and famous are like you and I [1].

Sandburg's unadorned, unpretentious style lends itself well to snippets like
this. Today's poem does not have the rollicking energy, the sweeping
syllables of "Chicago". Nor does it have the subtle beauty, the delicate
imagery of "Crucible" and "Pennsylvania". But it does not need either of
these to succeed. Instead, the impact of "Soup" is in all the little
touches, the splashes of detail, in phrases such as 'tall black headlines'
and 'bending his head over a plate'. Skilfully done.

thomas.

[1]     "The rich are different from you and me." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald.
        "Yes, they have more money." -- Ernest Hemingway.

[Links]

While Sandburg's passionate unstructured verse may have invigorated American
poetry when it was first published in the early years of this century, in
recent years it has fallen out of favour with critics due to its seeming
lack of discipline. Read http://www.poetscanvas.org/jan_feb_mar/sandburg.htm
for more on this subject.

Poems by Sandburg on the Minstrels:
Poem #5, Chicago
Poem #163, Dust
Poem #205, Crucible
Poem #235, Pennsylvania
Poem #282, Fog
Poem #679, Maybe
Poem #713, Last Answers
The second and third of these have biographies, from EB and poets.org
respectively.

Washing the Dishes -- Christopher Morley

(Poem #833) Washing the Dishes When we on simple rations sup How easy is the washing up! But heavy feeding complicates The task by soiling many plates. And though I grant that I have prayed That we might find a serving-maid, I'd scullion all my days I think, To see Her smile across the sink! I wash, she wipes. In water hot I souse each pan and dish and pot; While Taffy mutters, purrs, and begs, And rubs himself against my legs. The man who never in his life Has washed the dishes with his wife Or polished up the silver plate-- He still is largely celibate. One warning: there is certain ware That must be handled with all care: The Lord Himself will give you up If you should drop a willow cup! -- Christopher Morley

Notes: From Chimneysmoke (1921)
       souse (v): soak, immerse, steep

A charming little poem, presenting an unexpected perspective on domestic
bliss. The poet's thesis is neatly summed up in the penultimate verse:

       The man who never in his life
       Has washed the dishes with his wife
       Or polished up the silver plate--
       He still is largely celibate.

The last verse is merely an anticlimax, bringing the poem to a gentle
conclusion - the main impact, despite the distraction of a final punchline,
is definitely in the verse before.

Links:

There's an accompanying illustration - see
  [broken link] http://geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/morley01.html#12

We've run one Morley poem, complete with biography (and don't miss Sunil
Iyengar's comment at the end): poem #553

-martin

Love Minus Zero / No Limit -- Bob Dylan

Guest poem submitted by Zenobia Driver:

(Poem #832) Love Minus Zero / No Limit My love she speaks like silence, Without ideals or violence, She doesn't have to say she's faithful, Yet she's true, like ice, like fire. People carry roses, Make promises by the hours, My love she laughs like the flowers, Valentines can't buy her. In the dime stores and bus stations, People talk of situations, Read books, repeat quotations, Draw conclusions on the wall. Some speak of the future, My love she speaks softly, She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all. The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge. The bridge at midnight trembles, The country doctor rambles, Bankers' nieces seek perfection, Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring. The wind howls like a hammer, The night blows cold and rainy, My love she's like some raven At my window with a broken wing. -- Bob Dylan

There was this concert in Bombay on Dylan's birthday where a lot of Indian
artists sang his songs. Some of them were putrid singers but some were
really nice. There was someone called Geeta Raheja who sang Joan Baez's
'Diamonds and Rust' and it was brilliant - partly due to the atmosphere - it
was amazing, just when she began, this wind sprang up out of nowhere and the
leaves in the trees started rustling and suddenly the sky turned cloudy -
and there she was on stage, singing beautifully in a plain dark black saree.
Amazing effect. Just for that song alone the concert was worth it. Kim
Cardoz sang 'House of the Rising Sun' really well too. And someone whose
name I disremember sang 'love minus zero'. I had never heard the song before
and fell in love with it. I have no clue what the original is like and
whether he was mauling it, but I liked the way he sang it. Hence the hunt
for the lyrics and this poem.

Zenobia.

[Minstrels Links]

Bob Dylan:
Poem #112, Mr.Tambourine Man
Poem #227, Desolation Row

And the inspiration for his assumed name, Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind

The Soldiers at Lauro -- Spike Milligan

Guest poem submitted by Siddhartha Joshi:

(Poem #831) The Soldiers at Lauro Young are our dead Like babies they lie The wombs they blest once Not healed dry And yet - too soon Into each space A cold earth falls On colder face. Quite still they lie These fresh-cut reeds Clutched in earth Like winter seeds But they will not bloom When called by spring To burst with leaf And blossoming They sleep on In silent dust As crosses rot And helmets rust. -- Spike Milligan

Spike has a magical way with words. The ability to make a poem seem absurdly
simple to compose when it is anything but - unless you are blessed with the
skill - is very rare indeed. In "...Lauro" he captures the choked poignancy
of the moment of burying the dead deftly and with great economy of words. He
manages, at the same time to convey his silent, sad, hopeless anger at the
utter stupidity of war and it abbreviation of a life already too brief.

Siddhartha.

[Minstrels Links]

A very different sort of poem by Milligan is the light-hearted "Teeth",
Poem #701 on the Minstrels. There's a biography accompanying it.