Feeling a little ‘mimsy’ perhaps? – Lewis Carroll

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Looking at humour in poetry … the Victorian-age did produce some creative light relief from the conservative life of text … one of the most famous pieces being …

Jabberwocky
the first and last stanza …

“Twas brillig, and slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

From Through the Looking-Glass, Chap 1

Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898) = Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Anglican deacon and lecturer in mathematics)

Humpty Dumpty’s explication:
Brillig = 4 O’Clock in the afternoon … the time for broiling things for dinner
Slithy = lithe and slimy … two meanings packed into one word -a portmanteau word
Toves = a combination of badger/lizard/corkscrew … make nests under sundials and live on cheese
Gyre = to go round and round like a gyroscope … it does in fact mean circular motion
Gimble = make holes like a gimlet = a small tool for making holes
Wabe = grass plot around a sundial … it goes a long way before it and a long way after it
Mimsy = flimsy and miserable
Borogrove = thin shabby looking bird with its feathers sticking out all around
Mome = short for ‘from home’, Rath = green pig
Outgrabe = outgribing = something between bellowing and whistling with a kind of sneeze
From Through the Looking-Glass, Chap 6

Out of all the nonsense words above slithy and mimsy have a wonderful feel and quite an acceptable explanation or should I say they are quite texplanable.

If you are feeling creative have a go at creating portmanteau words. (Portmanteau = a large suitcase consisting of two parts that fold together.) See if you can come up with something really interesting. For example – gentle and kind = kindle. However, a word of warning when working with children … work with an Alice who knows what is right and proper … we do not want to destroy the spelling of the correct words! … i.e. before becoming too proright.

You could also try the reverse and take a genuine word and break it into two components e.g. bright = brilliant and light … I’m not sure what you call this – the unpacking of the suitcase to view the contents?

It is no surprise though that such creative (all be it nonsensical) words were the result of writing for children who love such play and it is a wonder that more new words did not migrate to colloquial use.

… and here’s truly hoping you are not having a mimsy day!

… and this is a Website link to the full Jabberwocky poem

Life After Death – Pindar – Remembrance Day

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Life after Death

For them the sun shines ever in full might
Throughout our earthly night;
There, reddening with the rose, their paradise,
A fair green pleasance, lies,
Cool beneath shade of incense-bearing trees,
And rich with golden fruit:
And there they take their pleasure as they will,
In chariot-race, or young-limbed exercise
In wrestling, at the game of tables these,
And those with harp or lute:
And blissful where they dwell, beside them still
Dwells at full bloom perfect felicity:
And spreading delicately
Over the lovely region everywhere
Fragrance in the air
Floats from high altars where the fire is dense
With perfumed frankincense
Burned for the glory of Heaven continually.

Pindar – Greek lyric poet (c. 522 – c. 443 BC)

Translated by Walter Headlam – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_George_Headlam

It is Remembrance Day today and we remember the many that suffered in the first World War. You may think this poem  is an unusual choice for this day. However, I intend reading my poem ‘The Fragrance at Flanders’ at a special University of the Third Age event to mark Remembrance Day followed by the above where ‘fragrance’  is also featured. It’s just that I think it would be nice (or poetic) if those that suffer greatly in life – those that never really have a life – have some sort of justice in an after-life – that is if of course there is an after-life.

And the first two lines of the poem remind me of those well known words … ‘they do not grow old as we that are left go old’.

I am, of course, using Pindar’s words thinking of war heroes but they were written in relation to the great sporting heroes of his day …

From Wikipedia … Almost all Pindar’s victory  odes are celebrations of triumphs gained by competitors in Panhellenic festivals such as the Olympian Games. The establishment of these athletic and musical festivals was among the greatest achievements of the Greek aristocracies. Even in the 5th century, when there was an increased tendency towards professionalism, they were predominantly aristocratic assemblies, reflecting the expense and leisure needed to attend such events either as a competitor or spectator. Attendance was an opportunity for display and self-promotion, and the prestige of victory, requiring commitment in time and/or wealth, went far beyond anything that accrues to athletic victories today, even in spite of the modern preoccupation with sport

Incidentally, Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) who started to compile a dictionary of English usage many years ago had a wonderful definition of ‘Justice’ – ‘the virtue by which we give every man what is his due’. Of course there is no such thing as justice in this life – but the after-life is another matter.

Even if you don’t believe in God or a creator with affinity for humanity it’s nice to create one in the mind, especially one capable of giving some form of justice to those that have suffered unduly.

Link – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindar#Values_and_beliefs

And here is a bugle playing of The Last Post’ courtesy of You-Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McCDWYgVyps

An Arundel Tomb – Philip Larkin – Analysis

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ArundelTombChichester

An Arundel Tomb

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd–
The little dogs under their feet.

The sculpture is of the Earl of Arundel and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster and it resides in Chichester Cathedral … in art dogs are a sign of fidelity … apparently over the years the sculpture has been vandalised and repaired

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

In all the cathedrals and churches Larkin visited he never saw such tenderness depicted in stone and he was quite moved by the sight … generating this poem.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They have been together for centuries in stone whereas in life they would never lie so close given that marriages were very much a political arrangement … there is a double take too on the word ‘lie’ as there probably would have been a lot of deceit in the arrangement. The Latin names around the base probably ignored by those visiting the cathedral today – but the holding of hands an attraction to the eye.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Well, the nature of marriage has changed over the years and those visiting today would view the holding of hands perhaps as a more loving union. Supine = lying on the back without energy.

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

I like the view of the outside while the tomb is fixed and oblivious to the changing seasons. Apparently the grounds of Chichester Cathedral are known for bird song.

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

People today don’t understand the history and context … washing over the sculpture … history becomes a scrap – unarmorial = not decorated with a coat of arms

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Philip Larkin

We have the contrast – the truth of love – the reality of love being something different from what this time-frozen stone fixture might suggest … the important things that survive are not so much the physical –but ‘love’ (whatever this means to the reader) … but then the physical may be needed as a catalyst or prompt. It certainly prompted Larkin to think about love – and he was certainly not a ‘love’ poet – but it has been said that he was haunted by such notions although of a melancholic nature.

A YouTube video of Philip Larkin reading this poem

Only Two Lips – A Spring Poem

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Floriade is the name of the  spring flower festival in Canberra in the Commonwealth Gardens near the centre of the city. Mainly a showing of bulbs including of course tulips. It is quite a tourist attraction and many come to Canberra to see the displays.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The U3A ‘Arts’ Exhibition had a theme of tulips, poppies and spring. I wrote the following poem for the opening day (see the previous post) …

Tulips in a vase, focus on flower in foreground

Only Two Lips

who do you think you are
standing so pert and penal
asserting yourself in rich colour
arrogant, obvious
demanding my attention

well I’m not falling for it!
such a brazen showing
with your closed-mouth talk
I will give you what you deserve –
lip service, and just you wait

your day will come
believe me, you will bend
becoming quite dishevelled
falling to kiss the ground
in total disarray

Richard Scutter  2 August 2014

It is always very interesting when you read a poem in public because you never quite know what reception will follow. The audience was mainly  women and  in the older bracket, so that was appropriate. A few realized that I was not actually talking about tulips so much and there were a couple of wry smiles – which was encouraging!

There were a few hangups on the word ‘penal’. Well penal = punishing – and from a male perspective the beautiful can be quite punishing in many ways especially when young, ‘manipulative’ and of a demanding nature.

U3A – Art/Poetry/Music Exhibition – Promoting Poetry

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An Exhibition of Art, Poetry and Music was held by Canberra University of the Third Age (U3A) Groups on 20 October.

For interest, and to promote the Poetry Appreciation Group I created a POETRY TREE and attached twenty quotes on the nature of poetry by famous poets – Keats, Wordsworth, Auden, Frost, Owen, Hunt, Pound, Coleridge, Finch, Shelley, Sandburg, Arnold, Hill and Stevens.

PoetryTree
The Poetry Tree:   Poetry = Discovery

… and then a ‘Cento poem’ where each line takes text taken from the quotes –

Poetry

Unearths
the best words
the supreme fiction
must be as well written as prose

conceived and composed in the soul
the spontaneous outflow
a way of taking life
the breath and finer

shall tune her sacred voice
in the pity
the feverish fit
the flower of experience

a spark of inextinguishable thought
the opening and closing
should surprise
should be great

the achievement
makes nothing happen
what is lost in translation
at bottom a criticism

Richard Scutter

Context  – from the quotes …

Geoffrey Hill (English Poet) – Poetry unearths from among the speechless dead
Coleridge – Poetry equals the best words in the best order
Wallace Stevens – Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Ezra Pound – Poetry must be as well written as prose
Mathew Arnold – Poetry is conceived and composed in the soul
Wordsworth – Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
Robert Frost – Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat
Wordsworth – Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge
Samuel Johnson – Poetry shall tune her sacred voice, and wake
from ignorance the Western World
Wilfred Owen – Poetry is in the pity of war
Anne Finch (English Poet) Poetry’s the feverish fit, the overflowing of
unbounded wit
Leigh Hunt – Poetry – I take to be the flower of any kind of experience
Shelley – Poetry – a single word may even be a spark of inextinguishable thought
Carl Sanburg (American poet) – Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, …
Keats – Poetry should surprise by a fine excess
Keats – Poetry should be great and unobtrusive
Carl Sanburg (American poet) – Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis
of hyacinths and biscuits
W. H. Auden – Poetry makes nothing happen
Robert Frost – Poetry is what is lost in translation
Matthew Arnold – Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life

R-SpeakingTalking Poetry

In one word Poetry = Discovery … the poet discovers something in the creation process –  apart from the fact that achievment was possible! – perhaps a deeper personal understanding of experience … the reader discovers something of life disclosed by the poet and always something of the nature of the poet. And if art = looking and seeing and the repeat of this again and again then poetry = reading and absorbing and then repeating this again and again. Discovery is not a simple process. The U3A Poetry Appreciation Group hopefully helps insight by sharing within the group – especially where poems are a little difficult on first readings.

London Rain – Louis MacNeice

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This year many of the the poets visited in our U3A (University of Third Age) sessions have had some connection with religious ministry. When you come to think about it it is not surprising. Ministers are thought-full people – don’t you think!

Louis MacNeice was no exception. His father was a Protestant minister who later became a bishop of the Anglican Church of Ireland. Below is Louis MacNeice’s poem ‘London Rain’, written at a time of conflict in Europe. He wrestles with thoughts on God as he looks out late at night on the rain. Sharing my comments which are shown in italics after each stanza.

 London Rain

The rain of London pimples
The ebony street with white
And the neon lamps of London
Stain the canals of night
And the park becomes a jungle
In the alchemy of night.

London night-time rain … I love that word pimples and the catch of light in the pimple from the street lamps … ebony = rich dark black wood … giving a little gloss to the dark … and there is a whole new mapping of the streets … as in a chemical reaction …the light staining, leaving it’s mark

My wishes turn to violent
Horses black as coal–
The randy mares of fancy,
The stallions of the soul–
Eager to take the fences
That fence about my soul.

This looks like dissatisfaction on where he is in life … in terms of violent horses … he wants to break free … and this may be a spiritual unrest when we look at later stanzas

Across the countless chimneys
The horses ride and across
The country to the channel
Where warning beacons toss,
To a place where God and No-God
Play at pitch and toss.

Well his thoughts travel across the channel to the war and this occupies his mind … God and No-God (the Good and the Bad) playing pitch and toss = a game of skill and chance

Whichever wins I am happy
For God will give me bliss
But No-God will absolve me
From all I do amiss
And I need not suffer conscience
If the world was made amiss.

He is talking about the God/No-God battle going on in his mind. If there is a God – everything will be OK and if No-God then it doesn’t matter about all the conscience problems … these are his on-going thoughts as he watches the rain … his logic…dare I say late-night logic!

Under God we can reckon
On pardon when we fall
But if we are under No-God
Nothing will matter at all,
Adultery and murder
Will count for nothing at all.

Expounding his thoughts from the previous stanza … bad behaviour will not matter … no accountability… and under God we will be absolved of all our missdemeanours.

So reinforced by logic
As having nothing to lose
My lust goes riding horseback
To ravish where I choose,
To burgle all the turrets
Of beauty as I choose.

So his logic suggests to him that this horse can ride amuck with no consequence … taking the No-God ride so to speak … and using this to justify any course of action

But now the rain gives over
Its dance upon the town,
Logic and lust together
Come dimly tumbling down,
And neither God nor No-God
Is either up or down.

It looks as though it has stopped raining for a while … and in sync. with this his God/No-God thinking seems to fall away too … well it is late night and he is a little confused

The argument was wilful,
The alternatives untrue,
We need no metaphysics
To sanction what we do
Or to muffle us in comfort
From what we did not do.

The argument was very wilful = headstrong … and indeed ‘we need no metaphysics = abstract thinking’ … and in his case no ‘God/No-God’ thoughts to work out what we should be doing or to justify our actions. (I might add that those that shout God is on our side are often using God to justify their ungodly actions.)

Whether the living river
Began in bog or lake,
The world is what was given,
The world is what we make.
And we only can discover
Life in the life we make.

Bog and lake are references to his Irish / English heritage. For me this is the key stanza … it is up to us to make what we will of the world, of this gift … and we can only discover how we should live in living life. In a sense it is up to us – our responsibility to create our own God (and if we do happen to believe in an external God then perhaps our understanding of God may come clearer). Focus on the gift of the present, the here and now…don’t worry about what is happening overseas!

So let the water sizzle
Upon the gleaming slates,
There will be sunshine after
When the rain abates
And rain returning duly
When the sun abates.

Well, rain and sun one will follow the other in an endless cycle (good and bad) – that is the way of the world and we have to accept it – (hopefully life improves over time!)

My wishes now come homeward,
Their gallopings in vain,
Logic and lust are quiet,
And again it starts to rain;
Falling asleep I listen
To the falling London rain.

His mind is now back on where he is … in his room looking out on the falling rain … the logic/lust distraction of thought in vain … and the wild horses that took his thoughts away at the beginning of the poem bring him home again … he notices it has started to rain again … falling rain and enough thinking for one night falls asleep… let’s hope he has pleasant dreams!

(The rhyming scheme is a b c b d b – with a repeat end word in lines four and six of each stanza).

New Fruit – Ann Drysdale

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New Fruit

In the last knockings of the evening sun
Eve drinks Calvados. Elsewhere in her life
She has played muse and mistress, bitch and wife.
Now all that gunpoint gamesmanship is done.
She loves the garden at this time of day.
Raising her third glass up to God, she grins;
If this is her come-uppance for her sins
It’s worth a little angst along the way.
A fourth. Again the cork’s slow squeaky kiss.
If, as the liquor tempts her to believe,
The Lord has one more Adam up His sleeve
He’s going to have to take her as she is—
Out in the garden in a dressing-gown
Breathing old apples as the sun goes down.

Here is a very entertaining sonnet from Ann Drysdale. We were looking at poetry from Wales at a U3A session and a member brought in this poem. Ann Drysdale is now living in Wales but previously spent much of her life in north Yorkshire.

Last knockings = the final stages of something … it is not just the evening sun as we will see later in the poem – a very apt choice of words

Calvados = an apple brandy from France – again later in the poem we will see how apt it is that it is apple brandy – Eve being connected with apple and seducing.

And Eve has obviously led quite an abundant life in a number of relationships including wife and mistress – but all that ‘gunshot gamesmanship’ is over – to me this implies a lack of effort now due to current circumstances – a feeling that she can’t be bothered in making the play of previous years.

She is in the garden by herself, apart of course from the gin bottle – raising her third glass she grins – well how can she do otherwise after drinking gin – and she contemplates her sins and thinks if this is the outcome it’s not too bad – it’s Ok to sin if this is all that happens, but of course there is the downside that she is alone and needs someone.

The fourth gin gives new hope that perhaps there is another Adam to be caught (looking hopefully to God who has supplied previous opportunities) – I love the ‘squeaky kiss’ of the cork bottle – but she lets a future Adam now that she is to be taken as she is, undressed – well apart from her dressing gown and breathing old apples  … the wounds of past relationships  … and you have the distinct feeling she is not what you might call a fresh young pippin – not new fruit!

What a wonderful witty entertaining poem with such well-chosen words.

Here is a link to more of her poetry.

A White Blank Wall – A poem in a public place

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A White Blank Wall

Ask any latrine a white blank wall
is a blackboard waiting to happen
an unwritten open invitation
saying plenty by saying nothing
just patiently waiting in expectation –
waiting for that certain type of person
the sort of person who instinctively
wants to leave his or her mark

unlike the wet concrete scene
time is always on its side
believe me it will happen
just mark my words!
you will come in one day and –
no surprise, no surprise, I told you so

if you’re pissed-off that’s another matter!

Anonymous – of course

Context – Our U3A Poetry Group is currently in the process of working on a Spring exhibition of poetry at our local community hub. The exhibition is in association with the U3A Art Group. In the lead-up we have been displaying poems throughout the community building apart from a dedicated noticeboard – including placing poems in the toilets.

You would not believe it but one very nice framed poem was stolen from the toilet area. The above was written as my poetic response and I am happy to report that to-date it still adorns the toilet wall.

Apparently displaying poetry in public places has a name – ‘poem bombing’.

CookToiletPoem