Bad Poetry
The Really Beloved Friend stopped by the office on her way home to say that one of her students had been ill with scarlet fever, which one never hears about anymore.
And the news knocked loose some poetry out of my brain, in this case some old doggerel concerning a dying Gypsy:
There we leave her, there we leave her,
Far from where her swarthy kindred roam,
In the Scarlet Fever, Scarlet Fever,
Scarlet Fever Convalescent Home.
The friend was impressed. What a store of knowledge! But, I said, there's more, cause Bad Poetry is a lovesome thing, God wot. There is, for instance, the poem supposedly written by one of Queen Victoria's subjects, upon her death:
Dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes.
Into the tomb
The Great Queen dashes.
Yes, that's a nice one. And there's that poem that Sir Edmund Gosse said his servant wrote, though he probably did it himself:
O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face,
Careening along through the boundaries of space,
The thought has often come into my mind
If I ever shall see thy glorious behind.
Oh, I love bad poetry. I mean really bad, not your usual run-of-the-mill mediocre stuff. I've got two or three collections of bad poetry around here.
It pleases me to tell you that Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan, who was Mark Twain's favorite poet -- he said he carried a little volume of her work with him at all times, cause you never know when you might need cheering up -- shows up in ALL these collections, cause you cannot do without Julia Moore.
My favorite examples of Moore's brilliance include the opening stanza of "Sketch of Lord Byron's Life":
"Lord Byron" was an Englishman,
A poet I believe.
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was "Lord Byron's" fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.
In this example I enjoy especially the use of quotation marks, to set off the English title, thereby raising doubt as to its legitimacy -- nice American move, that. Also I like the second line, which raises doubts as to the entire enterprise. Was he a poet? Or maybe a playwright? Who knows? Does it matter? And then there's the issue of reception. Why is the poetry not appreciated at first? Well, who knows? The poem continues much in this vein. For a while, really.
Another example: In the middle of "Little Libby," after one has heard about the darlingness of the said child for a while -- quite a while -- one is rewarded by this explanation of Why The Child Is Dead:
While eating dinner this dear little child
Was choked on a piece of beef.
Doctors came, tried their skill awhile,
But none could give relief.
You can't beat that, I say, for clarity and precision. With meter and rhyme.
I'm pleased to see that the Julia Moore site I linked to above -- here it is again, if you don't want to go looking -- is setting itself to instigate Julia Moore studies amongst graduate students. "The author's daringly experimental metrics and rhymes, her avant-garde grammar, the piquancy of her use of proper nouns, and her bold coinages all suggest themselves as topics for exploration," the author, Seamus Cooney, says. I love him. He is my hero. He links to a reader who takes him to task for not understanding Julia in her context. Lovely.
Also,he provides a page of Bad Poetry, for those of us who think we might want more.
William McGonagall! Margaret Cavendish! Theophilus Marzials!
I'll see you later -- I have some poetry to memorize.
And the news knocked loose some poetry out of my brain, in this case some old doggerel concerning a dying Gypsy:
There we leave her, there we leave her,
Far from where her swarthy kindred roam,
In the Scarlet Fever, Scarlet Fever,
Scarlet Fever Convalescent Home.
The friend was impressed. What a store of knowledge! But, I said, there's more, cause Bad Poetry is a lovesome thing, God wot. There is, for instance, the poem supposedly written by one of Queen Victoria's subjects, upon her death:
Dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes.
Into the tomb
The Great Queen dashes.
Yes, that's a nice one. And there's that poem that Sir Edmund Gosse said his servant wrote, though he probably did it himself:
O Moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face,
Careening along through the boundaries of space,
The thought has often come into my mind
If I ever shall see thy glorious behind.
Oh, I love bad poetry. I mean really bad, not your usual run-of-the-mill mediocre stuff. I've got two or three collections of bad poetry around here.
It pleases me to tell you that Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan, who was Mark Twain's favorite poet -- he said he carried a little volume of her work with him at all times, cause you never know when you might need cheering up -- shows up in ALL these collections, cause you cannot do without Julia Moore.
My favorite examples of Moore's brilliance include the opening stanza of "Sketch of Lord Byron's Life":
"Lord Byron" was an Englishman,
A poet I believe.
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was "Lord Byron's" fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.
In this example I enjoy especially the use of quotation marks, to set off the English title, thereby raising doubt as to its legitimacy -- nice American move, that. Also I like the second line, which raises doubts as to the entire enterprise. Was he a poet? Or maybe a playwright? Who knows? Does it matter? And then there's the issue of reception. Why is the poetry not appreciated at first? Well, who knows? The poem continues much in this vein. For a while, really.
Another example: In the middle of "Little Libby," after one has heard about the darlingness of the said child for a while -- quite a while -- one is rewarded by this explanation of Why The Child Is Dead:
While eating dinner this dear little child
Was choked on a piece of beef.
Doctors came, tried their skill awhile,
But none could give relief.
You can't beat that, I say, for clarity and precision. With meter and rhyme.
I'm pleased to see that the Julia Moore site I linked to above -- here it is again, if you don't want to go looking -- is setting itself to instigate Julia Moore studies amongst graduate students. "The author's daringly experimental metrics and rhymes, her avant-garde grammar, the piquancy of her use of proper nouns, and her bold coinages all suggest themselves as topics for exploration," the author, Seamus Cooney, says. I love him. He is my hero. He links to a reader who takes him to task for not understanding Julia in her context. Lovely.
Also,he provides a page of Bad Poetry, for those of us who think we might want more.
William McGonagall! Margaret Cavendish! Theophilus Marzials!
I'll see you later -- I have some poetry to memorize.
<< Home