And when I was reading Agatha Christie, as well as other books, there would be couplets which I'd look up and find the whole poem. (That is how I found Auguries of Innocence, by Blake. Because Christie's Silent Night was named from among its verses.) And then I'd look up other works by people whose work I liked.
Here I will not proceed without acknowledging a debt of gratitude towards The Wondering Minstrels. There may be a million websites scattered across cyberspace containing poets and poetry, but I'm lucky I bumped into this one early on, and it has kept me. Its a brilliant labor of love, nicely organized and simple, yet efficient, and with comments informative as well as insightful. Over time, I have found many old favourites here, but more importantly, I have met many new favourites here. Thank you.
A few of my most liked poets are Wordsworth, Tennysson, Coleridge, Yeats, Keats, and Frost. These always jump to mind. But there are many more. And there are those whose poems I remember even though I may not recollect their names.
I can wax lyrical about poetry for a long time. However, for now, I will desist. With this much of an introduction, this being my first post on Poetry, I will allow it to speak for itself.
After this little bit.
Parodies are fun, especially when well made. The balloon is nice, but it is also fun to watch it whizz frantically around the room as the air rushes out of its open tail. And as much as I love the original classic (I am not saying they are full of air. They ARE brilliant.), I still love a skillful stab at it (The more brilliant the original, the greater the humor in parody. Its not disrespect, its humor by change of context. Or something.).
Here are some of my favourites, original and parodies.
Heraclitus
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
- William Johnson Cory
And directly from the pages of the Wondering Minstrels,
Parodies:
Two, this time, both titled 'They Told Me, Heraclitus'. The first is a
couplet that neatly deflates the poem's slightly dramatic atmosphere:
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead.
But I just wondered who you were, and what it was you said.
-- Guy Hanlon
The second is perhaps not as good overall, but it contains one of the nicest
opening couplets I've seen in a parody...
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead.
I never knew your proper name was Heraclitus, Fred.
You made out you were working-class, you talked with adenoids,
And so it was a shock to learn you were a name at Lloyd's
And now I'm full of doubts about the others at the squat.
Are they a load of Yuppies, or Thatcherites, or what?
Is Special Branch among us, camoflauged with crabs and fleas?
Is Kev a poncing Xenophon? Darren Thucydides?
-- Brian Fore
Another one I like for its very sharp retort to the original...
To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
- Frances Cornford
To quote Minstrels again:
Like 'Trees', like 'The Ballad of the Tempest', today's poem has just that combination of popular and annoying qualities that make it almost guaranteed to attract parodies. Chesterton was moved to reply on the woman's behalf:
Why do you rush through the fields in trains,
Guessing so much and so much.
Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-head poet that nobody reads;
And why do you know such a frightful lot
About people in gloves and such?
- Chesterton, 'The Fat White Woman Speaks'
(c. 1933); an answer to Frances Cornford.
and Housman skewered the poem rather neatly:
O why do you walk through the fields in boots,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,
Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
When the grass is soft as the breast of coots
And shivering-sweet to the touch?
- Housman
And for one of my all-time favourite original-parody pairs, see the next post !
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