Tit for Tat -- Christopher Morley

(Poem #914) Tit for Tat I often pass a gracious tree Whose name I can't identify, But still I bow, in courtesy It waves a bough, in kind reply. I do not know your name, O tree (Are you a hemlock or a pine?) But why should that embarrass me? Quite probably you don't know mine. -- Christopher Morley

An utterly trivial, but nonetheless charming poem. One of Morley's
particular gifts is to peer at the commonplace and reveal unexpectedly
viewpoints therein, and today's poem is no exception. "Tit for Tat" is not
really a 'funny' poem, in the laugh-out-loud sense, but it strikes a
pleasing note of gentle humour and whimsy.

Links:

We've run two of Morley's poems:

  poem #553 contains a biography and some notes on Morley

  poem #833 is another nice example of a mundane detail elevated into
  poetry.

-martin

The Waking -- Theodore Roethke

Guest poem submitted by Monica Bathija:

(Poem #912) The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me; so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go. -- Theodore Roethke

What attracted me to this poem first was the first line - "I wake to sleep
and take my waking slow". It seemed perfect for a dreamy lazy not-morning
person :). And of course "I learn by going where I have to go". Now every
time I read this poem I find it has something new to tell me through each
and every line. Besides the whole musicality of it.

Monica.

[Minstrels Links]

Named Poetic Forms:
Poem #904, The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina -- Miller Williams
Poem #905, I will put Chaos into fourteen lines -- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Poem #906, To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train -- Frances Cornford
Poem #907, Miss Charlotte Brown, Librarian, Goes Mad -- Felix Jung
Poem #908, Haiku -- Yosa Buson
Poem #909, The Limerick Packs Laughs Anatomical -- Anon.

Villanelles:
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night  -- Dylan Thomas
Poem #202, Missing Dates  -- William Empson
Poem #393, One Drunken Night  -- Peter Schaeffer
Poem #677, Time will say nothing but I told you so  -- W. H. Auden
Poem #706, It is the pain, it is the pain endures  -- William Empson

Theodore Roethke:
Poem #267, The Meadow Mouse

The Traveled Man -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

(Poem #911) The Traveled Man Sometimes I wish the railroads all were torn out, The ships all sunk among the coral strands. I am so very weary, yea, so worn out, With tales of those who visit foreign lands. When asked to dine, to meet these traveled people, My soup seems brewed from cemetery bones. The fish grows cold on some cathedral steeple, I miss two courses while I stare at thrones. I'm forced to leave my salad quite untasted, Some musty, moldy temple to explore. The ices, fruit and coffee all are wasted While into realms of ancient art I soar. I'd rather take my chance of life and reason, If in a den of roaring lions hurled Than for a single year, ay, for one season, To dwell with folks who'd traveled round the world. So patronizing are they, so oppressive, With pity for the ones who stay at home, So mighty is their knowledge, so aggressive, I ofttimes wish they had not ceased to roam. They loathe the new, they quite detest the present; They revel in a pre-Columbian morn; Just dare to say America is pleasant, And die beneath the glances of their scorn. They are increasing at a rate alarming, Go where I will, the traveled man is there. And now I think that rustic wholly charming Who has not strayed beyond his meadows fair. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A straightforward but fun poem - it lacks, perhaps, the biting wit of
Dorothy Parker or the sparkling brilliance of Gilbert, but it flows through
with an easy assurance that makes the narrator's point both well and
entertainingly.

The form is interesting - iambic pentameter, but with an extra syllable at
the end of alternate lines (varying feminine and masculine rhymes) that
gives the poem a flowing rhythm quite different from the usual 'formal' use
of the meter.

The only complaint i have against the poem is the weakness of the ending -
it is slightly too abrupt, and does not wrap up the poem well enough, IMO,
although the intent is clear.

Biography:

  [broken link] http://192.211.16.13/individuals/edwardsr/ella/Bio/mentor.htm has a nice
  biography, with emphasis on her literary output.

  [broken link] http://192.211.16.13/individuals/edwardsr/ella/bioindex.htm is an
  extensive collection of biographies, linked to from the main Wilcox site,
  [broken link] http://192.211.16.13/individuals/edwardsr/ella/ellahome.htm

Minstrels Links:

  Leacock's "Social Plan" is another look at an annoying class of
  individual: poem #789

  The penultimate verse recalls Gilbert's "I've Got a Little List":
    poem #135

-martin

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket -- John Keats

Guest poem submitted by Mike Christie:

(Poem #910) On the Grasshopper and the Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead In summer luxury -- he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. -- John Keats

It's cricket season here in Texas, and the other day a cricket found its way
into our office and started serenading us from a coworker's desk.  We
eventually tracked him down and released him outside, though the corpses of
dozens of his brethren are littering our parking lot, lobby and staircase.

Anyway, he reminded me of Keats' sonnet above, which I've liked since I read
it decades ago.  As I recall, the sonnet was written relatively early in
Keats' career, and was the result of a competition with a friend to write a
sonnet on a grasshopper.  I've never known who the friend was or how his
sonnet came out, though I rather suspect Keats won the competition.  If
anyone can find out I'd love to know.

Mike Christie.

[Minstrels Links]

Other poems by Keats:
Poem #12, On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
Poem #182, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Poem #316, Ode to a Nightingale
Poem #433, Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
Poem #575, To Mrs Reynolds' Cat
Poem #696, Last Sonnet
Poem #770, A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for Ever
Poem #910, On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

Poetry competitions seem to have been quite popular with the Romantics; see
Poem #22, Ozymandias  -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
and its companion piece:
Poem #285, On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in
the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below  -- Horace Smith

The Limerick Packs Laughs Anatomical -- Anonymous

(Poem #909) The Limerick Packs Laughs Anatomical The limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean - And the clean ones so seldom are comical. -- Anonymous

The poem says it all <g>.

More seriously, while there are several excellent clean limericks, the vast
majority do tend to be - well, as Don Marquis put it, there are three
distinct types: "Limericks to be told when ladies are present; limericks to
be told when ladies are absent but clergymen are present--and LIMERICKS".

As I said in a previous commentary, the limerick is a nicely balanced
combination of a clever and entertaining structure and a fairly low entry
barrier; this has been responsible for a flood of limericks that is,
conceivably, greater in volume than the sum total of all other amateur
verse. And, while the form was popularised by the decidedly clean (but so
seldom comical[1]) limericks of Lear, somewhere along the line it became
inextricably intertwined with the bawdy.

[1] please don't flame me :)

An intriguing thing about limericks is that, while few of them are
attributed, they nonetheless have a surprising spreading power and lifetime.
There is a large body of famous limericks, many of them in several minor
variations, that seem to have entrenched themselves in the collective canon
without much benefit of formal publication or compilation. The humour
definitely helps here, as does the simple, and easily memorised verse form -
good limericks can and do get spread very rapidly by word of mouth (and
now, of course, the internet).

One drawback (if you can call it that) of the form is that it is almost
irretrievably frivolous. It's nigh impossible to write a serious poem in
limerick form (though I have seen some scattered examples), and most people
don't even bother trying. Also, the limerick is a very self-contained form;
while I've seen several poems with each verse consisting of a limerick, I
feel that the technique doesn't really work, because of the irresistible
feeling of closure when the reader reaches the fifth line.

Links:

  http://www.cc.emory.edu/ENGLISH/classes/Handbook/limerick.html is an
  excellent essay on limericks

  http://www.interviews-with-poets.com/poetry-directory/limerick.html has a
  nice collection of links

  We've run a couple of limericks on Minstrels:
    Poem #378: "There Was an Old Man with a Beard", Edward Lear
    Poem #801: "A Mosquito Was Heard to Complain", Dr. D. D. Perrin

-martin