English Monarchs -- Anonymous

Guest poem requested by Christie le Goy, and
almost simultaneously submitted by Christopher Martin:

(Poem #1361) English Monarchs Willie Willie Harry Stee Harry Dick John Harry three; One two three Neds, Richard two Harrys four five six... then who? Edwards four five, Dick the bad, Harrys (twain), Ned six (the lad); Mary, Bessie, James you ken, Then Charlie, Charlie, James again... Will and Mary, Anna Gloria, Georges four, Will four, Victoria; Edward seven next, and then Came George the fifth in nineteen ten; Ned the eighth soon abdicated Then George six was coronated; After which Elizabeth And that's all folks until her death. -- Anonymous

[Christopher's comments]

I first read a version of this in Alan Bennett's play "Forty Years On"
which however stopped at Victoria. This version I found on the web at
        http://www.britannia.com/history/h6.html
There are no doubt many others.

For those who aren't immediately reminded by it of their school years,
the scrap of verse is supposed to put you in mind of:

William the Conqueror
William II (Rufus)
Henry I (Beauclerc)
Stephen (of Blois)
Henry II (Curtmantle)
Richard I (Lionheart)
John (Lackland)
Henry III
Edward I (Longshanks)
Edward II
Edward III
Richard II
Henry IV (Bolingbroke)
Henry V
Henry VI
Edward IV
Edward V
Richard III (Crookback)
Henry VII (Tudor)
Henry VIII
Edward VI
Mary I (Queen of Scots)
Elizabeth I
James VI of Scotland and I of England
Charles I
Charles II
James II
William II
Mary II
Anne (dead)
George I
George II
George III
George IV
William IV
Victoria
Edward VII
George V
Edward VIII (abdicated)
George VI
Elizabeth II

[Not mentioned in the list or the mnemonic are the Empress Matilda, only
surviving legitimate child of Henry I, and mother of Henry II, who was
deposed by her cousin Stephen; and Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for
nine days in 1553 - t.]

[Also omitted are the monarchs who ruled prior to the Battle of
Hastings, though looking at their names -- Egbert and Aethelwulf through
Eadwig and Svein to Hardicanute and Harold -- it's not hard to see why -
t.]

Untitled -- Donald Monat

Guest poem sent in by Mike Lynd , who writes:

(Poem #1360) Untitled Lying south of sweet Northumber, Lands of Westmor, Rut and Cumber, Nottingham for forest walks, Durham, Derby, Lancs and Yorks, Leicester, Warwick, Wilts ahead, Fords of Here, Staff and Bed, Shires of Lincoln, Shrop and Ches, Sexes - Middle, Sus and Es! Worcester, Gloucester, down the Severn South to Somerset and Devon, On to Dorset, Kent and Surrey Passing London in a hurry. Berkshire Thames where Oxford punts, Herts or Bucks for Cambridge Hunts, Hants and Northants, Norfolk, Suff, Cornwall, Monmouth - that's enough. -- Donald Monat

You asked for it! [Indeed - see Poem #1358 - and I'm glad I did! - martin]

Here are the old counties of England as a mnemonic by someone called Donald
Monat, who, I think, won a competition with it in the magazine, the New
Statesman.

Notes:  Rutland has now gone as has Huntingdonshire.  Americans will need to
be reminded that Warwickshire is Worrick not war-wick and that
Leicestershire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire are lester, wuster and
gloster respectively.  Derbyshire is darby and Hertfordshire is hartford.
[And Here in line 6 has two syllables, as in 'Hereford' - martin]

Best wishes,

Mike Lynd

Dedication -- Salman Rushdie

Guest poem sent in by Nakul Krishna

(Poem #1359) Dedication Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu: All our dream-worlds may come true. Fairy lands are fearsome too. As I wander far from view Read, and bring me home to you. -- Salman Rushdie

Driven into hiding by Khomeini's infamous fatwa, a lonely Salman Rushdie
wrote 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories' -- an anti-censorship allegory set in
a fantastic quasi-Arabian-Nights world in danger of being destroyed by the
evil 'cult-master' Khattam-Shud, the enemy of all speech itself.

But part of Rushdie's intention in writing 'Haroun' was to explain the
situation to his then nine-year old son, Zafar, whose name is spelt out in
the lines of the above dedication. Clever, and touching, like the book
itself: highly recommended.

Cheers, Nakul.

PS. Possible theme for the Minstrels -- poems by writers better known for
their prose... [nice idea - will carry on with it - martin]

Someday Someone Will Bet That You Can't Name All Fifty States -- Judith Viorst

(Poem #1358) Someday Someone Will Bet That You Can't Name All Fifty States California, Mississippi North and South Dakota. New York, Jersey, Mexico and Hampshire, Minnesota. Vermont, Wisconsin, Oregon, Connecticut and Maine. Hawaii, Georgia, Maryland. Virginia (West and plain). Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Illinois, Alaska. Colorado, Utah, Florida, Delaware, Nebraska. the Carolinas (North and South). Missouri, Idaho. Plus Alabama, Washington, And Indiana, O- Klahoma. Also Iowa, Arkansas, Montana, Pennsylvania, Arizona, And Louisiana. Ohio, Massachusetts, and Nevada, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wyoming. That Makes forty-nine. You win As soon as you say ____________. -- Judith Viorst

It should come as no surprise that I loved this poem. "Someday, Someone..." is
an unabashed piece of playful ingenuity that does for the states what Lehrer
did
for the Elements [Poem #490], and I loved it for the same reasons - the sheer
satisfaction of seeing a hodgepodge list of names organised into a neat series
of rhymes, and the pleasure of the rhymes themselves. Not to mention a
vicarious thrill at the *cleverness* of it all.

This is, indeed, more puzzle than poetry, a puzzle that Viorst does a
brilliant job of solving. Indeed, the brilliance is twofold, for first she
had to formulate the puzzle, to ask herself "would it be possible to...?".
The twist at the end was wonderful too, even if it did cause me to spend a
good fifteen minutes staring at the list and eliminating states in a
scattershot manner (yes, I did solve it. No, I'm not going to spoil the
answer :))

martin

p.s. Some of you will doubtless be amused that my first thought on reading
line 8 was "West Virginia and just Virginia". I apologise to everyone else :)

p.p.s. If anyone knows of other poems in a similar vein, please do send them
in.

Links:

 Biography: http://www.annonline.com/interviews/980112/biography.html
 AAP site: [broken link] http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=62

Going to Sleep -- Hermann Hesse

Guest poem sent in by Vaibhav Puranik

(Poem #1357) Going to Sleep Now that the day wearies me, My yearning desire, will receive more kindly, like a tired child, the starry night Hence, leave off your deeds mind, forget all thoughts; All of my forces yearn only to sink into sleep. And my soul, unguarded, would soar on widespread wings, to live in a night's magical sphere More profoundly, more variously. -- Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha is what made Mr. Hesse famous, but this poem is what endears him
to me!! I believe the original was in "Deutsch" and this is a translated
version, so there might be slightly different versions floating around.

Hesse's depiction of the drained condition (in the 1st two stanzas) is very
vivid. I usually work late, & going home at late hours; my only desire is to
get into my bed & continue the glorious things I do in my dreams...

Biography links:
1. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hhesse.htm
2. http://www.levity.com/corduroy/hesse.htm
3. http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1946/hesse-autobio.html

Best Regards,

Vaibhav Puranik